


A Method for Schemes and Scams

by saltstreets



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Criminals, M/M, Slow Build, Slow Burn, White Collar Crime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-08-29 12:31:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 40,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8489764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltstreets/pseuds/saltstreets
Summary: It is a truth universally acknowledged that an ambitious college graduate in possession of a dead-end internship must be in want of a backhanded business scheme.Raúl González isn't going to wait around for Madrid in the throes of a global recession to hand him something better. He's going to take it.





	1. I.i

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the longest and most ridiculous undertaking of my literary career! Drawerfic no longer! The story is more or less complete in a very-rough-draft form that I'm working through editing and adding to, and will be updated (hopefully) every week or so. More pairings and characters will be added going forward.
> 
> This is mostly a story about Raúl as a white collar criminal, and there are some cameos thrown into the mix and also ~romance, and a lot of waffling the details in between. Knowing absolutely nothing about a) how businesses are run, b) computer programming, or c) crime, I technobabbled my way through this in it's entirety. So if you’re a business major or a computer whiz or a criminal and you’re reading this, please know that you’re going to spend a lot of it going ‘she's got no idea what she’s talking about’. Apologies in advance.
> 
> My most ardent thanks to [Anemoi](/users/anemoi) for not only holding my hand but in fact actively cheerleading me. I love you to the moon and back, and without you this would never have seen the light of day. <333
> 
> The title is cribbed from Warren Zevon’s song _Genius_.

 

 

The photocopier is broken. Again. Raúl thinks it might be a paper jam.

He’s become fairly adept at diagnosing the many ills that afflicted photocopiers, and at remedying said ills. He did it a lot: photocopying, observing the photocopier experience strangely violent malfunctions, repairing, and photocopying some more.

It had been a long couple months.

At least he’ll be able to rub it in Fernando’s face whenever they next speak that he’d been wrong about Raúl’s hopes of sailing up the career ladder, Raúl thinks idly as he crouches to open the paper tray. Shitty Spanish economy meant shitty Spanish business meant Spanish interns remained just that, interns, rather than becoming fully employed as their double degrees in business and economics and surely blinding intelligences qualified them for.

He has a brief struggle with a twisted sheet of A4 –it is a paper jam, he’d know that familiar grinding noise anywhere by this point- before dragging it free. The copier dings gently and proudly announces itself ready for next job on its tiny, blue-tinted, hateful screen.

Raúl is so sick of the copier.

But he goes back to the task at hand –it’s some kind of employee training manual, he notes with a trace of irony, as if the firm had been doing anything other than haemorrhaging employees and money since the recession hit- when the printer next to the machine hums to life and begins to spit out pages.

Luís comes around the corner.

Raúl likes Luís. He works a few floors below in tech support and programming, but he likes to print out a variety of things not strictly related to his job, and claims that his floor supervisor is onto him.

(They’ve really cracked down on extracurricular printing lately,” Luís’d explained the first time Raúl had encountered him printing off a Champions League bracket. “No idea why. It used to be a matter of course, if frowned upon.”

“Probably something to do with the company slowly going bankrupt,” Raúl had said, dryly.

“Oh, is it now?” Luís’d said with the same level of interest as someone who’d just been told that it had begun to rain. “Well, you don’t mind if I come up here to print, then? Security’s a lot more lax here than on the floor where I work.”

Raúl had assured him that he didn’t mind at all, and Luís had nodded approvingly with the air of a genial old man impressed by the local youth talent. “I knew I liked you. Here, take a bracket. I did two by accident.”

They’d been friendly ever since.)

“What’s on tap today?” Raúl asks, nodding towards the pages spewing from the printer.

“Crossword puzzles. For my mother. She loves them, is practically addicted, so I told her I’d print off a few from the internet and post them to her.” The final page shoots into the tray and Luís gathers the stack. “Although to be honest, the way she goes through them? It might be wiser to be planning an intervention instead.” Luís grins a sharp, sharp grin. “See you ‘round, Raúl.”

Raúl watches him go, navigating through the cubicles to the elevators on the far side of the room. Luís moved with a certain remarkable athletic grace and fluidity, but no one ever seemed to notice his frequent presence. Raúl was beginning to wonder if his job had finally driven him mad, leading him to hallucinate Portuguese programmers. Maybe it was a common symptom among interns.

 

\--

 

A month or so later Raúl is dragging his feet over to the photocopier when he sees Luís, a sheaf of paper under his arm, loitering.

“What’s up?” Raúl asks. “Looking for a handout?”

“Are you busy?”

Raúl raises an eyebrow and looks pointedly down at the brochures he’s supposed to be photocopying.

“I mean are you busy doing anything of substance that would conceivably take up more than thirty minutes of your day.”

“Have I ever been? I haven’t been genuinely busy for, god, months. Since I graduated, honestly. At this point I would probably kill for some actual work to do. I have two degrees! And yet here I rot.”

“Yes, very dramatic, it’s a tragedy I’m sure,” Luís says cheerily. “Once you’re done with this vital task can you come down to the tech office? I want to propose something.”

“Marriage?” Raúl quips, lifting open the copier and beginning the arduous task of laying the brochure on the glass, hitting three buttons, and waiting.

“I’m a bit offended that you said that so flippantly,” Luís said, mock hurt in his tone. “I might seriously have been proposing marriage.”

“In the tech offices?”

Luís thumps him over the head with the stack of paper. “Just come down when you’re done, yeah?”

 

 

The first thing Raúl notices when he steps out of the elevator is that the lighting on the tech floor is much dimmer than the harsh fluorescent glare that illuminates the rest of the building. He blinks, eyes adjusting, and sees Luís by a small cluster of cubicles.

Luís spots Raúl and waves him over. He’s sitting with two other people who instantly regard Raúl with a slight edge of suspicion, as though he might be there for a surprise performance review.

“Okay, introductions.” Luís doesn’t quite clap his hands together when he says it, but he might as well have, like a teacher on the first day of class. “All of you, this is Raúl...um, I don’t know his last name. I found him by the copier.”

“It’s González,” Raúl supplies helpfully. “Raúl González.”

“Nice. Raúl, the one losing his hair is Pep, and the angry-looking one is Xavi.”

Pep makes an indignant noise but Luís breezily talks over any objection to his mode of introduction. “We came here together from the Barcelona branch and were all supposed to go back after a few months of work, but since everything went to hell no one’s paid any attention to the tech sector and the paperwork was never processed. So we’ve been stranded here, waiting for HR to greenlight us to leave.”

“Of course,” Pep says, “some of us are a bit less eager to leave than others.”

Luís rolls his eyes. “Ignore him, he’s just annoyed with me at the moment.”

“It’s this ridiculous scheme of yours. I think you’ve finally lost it; next thing we know you’ll be watching Real Madrid matches.”

“I never,” Luís says, haughtily. He winks at Raúl. “All they do down here is code and argue about football. Sometimes both at the same time, which explains why there are so many glitches in the system.”

Pep looks offended. “We can multitask. There are no glitches in the system. Well,” he corrects himself, “one glitch.”

“Exactly,” Luís says, eyes glittering in a way that suddenly catches Raúl’s attention fully, the vanguard of something interesting to come.

“As you obviously know,” Luís begins, sitting down at an empty carrel, his voice dropping into a story-telling cadence, “everything’s going a bit chaotic recently. And this delightful firm that we all know and love-” there are a few sarcastic mutters from Xavi’s direction “-is steadily dissolving day by day, like a cliff into the sea.”

“That’s a really beautiful image,” Pep says dryly, “but you might want to get to the point before we all die of old age.”

“I’m just setting the tone. Have a little poetry in your soul, Pep.”

Pep gives Luís a Look.

“Anyways, we wrote the software that keeps track of company profits and losses and all that. And it just so happens that there’s a tiny glitch.

“The programme assesses profits and logs the data. But what happens is that for some reason it doesn’t log it automatically. It requires confirmation. Gives you the option to review before it confirms. Of course, it doesn’t necessarily require manual input. We could write something up to automatically say ‘yes, good, log this number’ when the programme asks or we could go in and fix the glitch but-”

Raúl is beginning to understand. “-but you could also go in and change the value when the programme allows.”

Luís smiles. “Exactly.”

“It’s actually pretty simple.” Xavi says. “We can write up a little scrap of a programme that changes the registered difference in calculated value. It just needs to be loaded at the correct time, alter the number, and then shut down and cleaned up before anyone notices the intrusion. Easy as that.”

“And then the difference, it gets translated as what? Is it diverted somewhere? A bank account?”

“Correct,” Luís says, not without a certain measure of pride. “The missing amount can be digitally wired into a bank account, as if making a withdrawal from the company treasury. Usually there would be an alert if someone was siphoning funds because the computer’s measure of the account would differ from its value calculation, but since the value calculation has been changed by the software without any outside programming nothing blips the radar.”

“That’s impressive,” Raúl says, unsure what he’s supposed to be saying in reaction, “but I don’t really see why you’re telling me?”

Luís glances at the others, and then turns back to Raúl. “Look,” he says confidentially, “I’m going to make you a job offer.”

Raúl’s eyebrows shoot up. He hadn’t really been expecting anything in particular but this is decidedly out of the blue.

“Plain and simple, we’re going to hit this place hard and then scram. One big parting shot, we come into about a million each before we leave. Since the numbers will have been legitimately logged, even though the loss is massive it won’t be marked upon until someone manually checks the actual value against the value that’s been recorded. And trust me, if you’d seen the state of the people who work in records? That won’t happen for a good long while.”

“Really,” Pep interjects smugly, “they depend on us for everything. We could rig up the computers to say the sky was falling and some of the idiot higher-ups wouldn’t even ask for a print-out, they’d just start blindly running for the exits.”

“Right. And this is a lot of money- a lot of money. A lot of money like that, without really having had to work for it, deserves a little investment. Something more than just turning tail with it. I’m thinking, this kind of money? It’s a start-up. I want to do something, something big.”

“A lot of us are being laid off next round of cuts.” Xavi says. “This department is being halved. But Pep and I are being sent back to the branch that they initially drafted us out of. We’ll be taking our cut and leaving. And I just want to go back to Barcelona. You can keep your schemes and scams, I’m sick of this city.”

Luís shrugs. “What can I say. The man loves Barcelona.” He grins. “Which is why I’m talking to you, Raúl. This city and this crisis- there’s a lot of opportunity to be had. You just have to take it.”

The tone of voice Luís is employing leaves little doubt in Raúl’s mind that said opportunity leans less than legal. He gets the distinct sense that Luís is a man powered in large part by chaos, both that around him and that of his own devising.

“We set ourselves up as business consultants. It’ll be easy enough for these guys to whip us up suitable résumés, and you’re equipped to do some actual work so great, do that, we won’t even have to launder the money or anything because we’ll have a legitimate source set up. It’s a good cover. Any half-way decent lie is based on truth, so it’s best if we dig in slow: do some real work, and on the side set up an investment firm, offering our customers our services to handle their stocks and so on and so forth. We use the money we’re got from this place to pad out our initial returns; we build a decent reputation as good businessmen who bring in big payouts, and that’s the base.”

Raúl doesn’t have to ask what for. “A pyramid scheme.”

“Don’t reinvent the wheel, if you ask me.” Luís spreads his hands. “Just polish the hubcaps and call it brand new. I have a bit of a talent for sniffing out people less concerned with the letter of the law than they are with zeros at the end of bank statements. All we need is the barest hint that our methods are slightly greyer than perhaps shining white legality, maybe not something as severe as insider trader or flat robbery but something just beyond the pale, and none of those all-important first clients will care to sniff around more than they need to.”

Raúl doesn’t respond, running over all the information being handed him. It’s laid out before him, all clear streams branching off in every which way. There’s something about the way Luís talks that makes him want to dive in without caring about how deep the water might be.

Luís misinterprets his silence for misgivings. “C’mon Raúl, you’ve helped me out in the past, what d’you say about this?”

“I’ve covered for you printing out crossword puzzles, Luís. This is on a slightly larger scale.” He says it absently, mostly just for the sake of argument. Luís says something else probably designed to sway Raúl but Raúl doesn’t hear it, his thoughts still racing. It doesn’t matter anyways, he’s made up his mind. He finds that suddenly, it’s an almost alarmingly simple choice.

On one hand, photocopying until he goes berserk. On the other, actually using the skills he’d been honing for the past four years doing interesting, challenging work. He’s being handed the opportunity to run his own start-up practically on a silver platter. So what if there were a few less-than-legal strings attached? It was what he wanted to do.

“This really isn’t going to help the economy recover at all,” Raúl says out loud at last, speaking slowly. Thoughtfully. “And just, humour me for a second. What would you have done if I’d reported you? Why did you tell a complete stranger about your plans to rob the place and leg it?”

Luís shrugs with an attempt at modesty. “I’m a good judge of character. You’re an ambitious person, that much is obvious. And don’t take this the wrong way, but that kind of ambition more often than not leads people to do things on the shadier side of what is strictly moral. And I’m not talking about cheating, because it’s not the same thing. Ambition that cheats doesn’t have the same kind of self-confidence as ambition that will take a shorter but more dangerous route to the top.

“Because that’s where we’re going. The top.”

Luís has the kind of face that is always half-smiling, but Raúl has never noticed how slightly unsettling it was until just that moment. It’s the face of a man who knows exactly what he can do, and is perfectly willing to fulfil that potential no matter where it takes him.

“It’s like he doesn’t even remember that we’re here,” Pep says exasperatedly, breaking the spell that Luís had been casting. He turns to Raúl. “Luís thinks you’re wasted as an intern. Which is really a compliment from an arrogant bastard like him.”

Luís gives Pep a pleased smack on the shoulder. “You make me sound so delightful.” He looks to Raúl expectantly. “So?”

He doesn’t hold out his hand to shake or anything so obvious, but Raúl still feels the sense of a contract in the air.

He offers his own hand to Luís. “So,” he says, “yes.”

 

\--

 

Even though Raúl barely knows Luís, and knows Pep and Xavi even less, it’s somehow not at all surprising that the complicated and vaguely outlined misadventure with the glitched software and the leaking treasury goes off without a hitch. There had been something about the way they had orientated themselves around each other that spoke to quiet and terrifying efficacy. He doesn’t hear details, but since he assumes it had all been done from the relative comfort of the squeaky-wheeled desk chairs in the tech offices, there probably wouldn’t be much to tell. All he knows is that Luís sends him an email with the subject line ‘QUIT’, containing only a screenshot of a bank statement. A bank statement with far more digits than Raúl has ever been able to personally lay claim to.

So they rent out a cramped set of two offices under the name Figo & González Consulting. Admittedly the offices are in one of the seedier districts of Madrid but something was something, and it was better than nothing. Luís designs a website that looks quite frankly beautiful and they put advertisements in the paper, but Raúl still has his doubts.

“No, seriously Luís, I’ve taken marketing courses. You can’t just set up a business and expect people to flock to you. It doesn’t work that way. Otherwise everyone would do it.”

Luís just laughs at his concerns, and waves a hand airily. “They do when you’re me. I have connections.”

Raúl narrows his eyes. “Could you make that sound a little more suspicious, please?”

“Raúl,” Luís says patiently, “we are literally running a front company for investment fraud. We’re already suspicious.”

“Hey, I resent that.” Raúl argues. “I like to think that we’re setting up a legitimate business with a bit of illegitimacy on the side, rather than vice versa. Our clients are, after all, going to be getting money. We’ll just be getting more money.”

“You say that now, but we’ll see.”

Raúl doesn’t add that privately, he’s been considering Luís’ plots as more of a way of getting his foot in the door. The money was a nice step up: a shortcut, so to speak. He hasn’t mentioned to Luís his dreams of legitimacy. He has the feeling that Luís would have just laughed.

 

 

How exactly Luís hooks their first customer, Raúl does not know. Only that he gets a triumphant phone call informing him of the fact on Thursday night around eleven. Apparently one of Madrid’s artisan florists was having difficulties balancing the books. Raúl didn’t even know Madrid had artisan florists. Or what the difference between them and regular florists were.

“We can’t work with this guy,” Raúl objects, looking at the e-mail confirming a meeting. “He owns a flower shop, he probably does his bills on a calculator and deposits cash into the bank. We might as well just break into the shop and steal from the till.”

But Luís is already shaking his head. “No, he’s actually owned by a larger flower supply giant. His profits go to them and he gets paid by them, he’s practically an outlet, they just keep the private name on the shop for advertising purposes. There was a takeover right before the economy crashed and burned, and apparently they’re now considering closing his branches all over Spain. We’ll also be passing our work on to his regional manager.”

It all seems slightly strange but at least a flower shop can’t be too much of a challenge to sort out. Nevertheless, two hours before the meeting Raúl feels slightly ill. Luís laughs at him. “Raúl, calm down. We’re not going to hold the guy up at gunpoint or anything. This is all about getting our name out there. The name is the most important thing at first. You just have to do your thing and keep the shop open.”

Raúl looks at him with slightly crazed eyes, nervously tugging on the sleeve of his blazer, adjusting the knot of his tie over and over. “That is the problem- it’s a real thing! I’m actually going to have to come up with a way to provide functionality to a struggling business! Well enough to prove that we might be potential trusted investors! This is my first actual job, you realise. I was an intern copying leaflets! I don’t know how to do this!”

“Raúl,” Luís tells him patiently. “You’re fine. You’re going to be fine. You’re prepared.” He pats Raúl on the shoulder. “We’re all thrown into the real world at some point. And anyways,” he adds as an afterthought, “it’s just a florist’s. How complicated could it be?”

 

 

Somehow, Luís seems immune to the curse of last words. During the meeting Raúl goes on about revenue and inflation and a number of other, more obscure terms that might well be entirely made up, and makes a flowery promise of “a stable implementation plan within a week barring any major set-backs”. And it’s actually not difficult. It’s like giving a presentation for an easy class that he’s been skipping: buzzwords and confident hand gestures.

The minute they’re out the door and back on the street Luís turns to Raúl proudly. “There you go! I knew you were going to be fine.”

Raúl shrugs, unable to stop the pleased smile from spreading over his face.

“You’re a natural talent, my friend,” Luís continues. “You’ll be the king of Madrid before the year is out.”

 

 

It turns out that Raúl hadn’t even been inventing as wildly as he might have been with the florist’s: the situation is indeed fairly straightforward and he manages to actually come up with a few good, effective solutions in a few days. He writes up a memo and a sample spreadsheet and sends the final email with the feeling of a job well done. It’s even more satisfying when he receives a profuse thank you from the florist about how effective Raúl’s ideas had been and how happy she is to be able to keep the shop open.

But nothing really tops Luís waltzing in with an email from the florist’s parent company requesting a widespread investigation into where the firm as a whole could make cuts. Luís’ meeting with the regional manager had gone exceedingly well.

“She was incredibly impressed. We officially have, not a whole foot yet, but at least a toe in the door. What did I tell you?” Luís claps him on the back. “Drinks. Now.”

 

\--

 

Things run smoothly after that, their little operation slowly gaining traction and attention. They get their first client who takes them up on their offer of investment advice (“we commonly provide such advice for our clients,” Luís lies cheerfully at every meeting, “since so often proper handling of stock is involved with the kind of paring down we do.”), which is a major step as the real money, the real, stupidly enormous money that Luís is after, lies in stocks carefully manipulated and returns lined with the not at all inconsiderable sums they had taken with them from Pep and Xavi’s glitch.

It’s a lot of work, to be sure, but Raúl enjoys what he’s doing, sometimes even forgetting that beneath his spreadsheets and portfolio analyses he’s also, well, stealing. It’s almost too easy, almost too simple, until one day, barely a year after setting up shop, they’re standing in Raúl’s office, Raúl staring at Luís in incomprehension. “What?”

“I’ve gotten a job offer.”

Raúl shakes his head. “A job offer? What- who’s given you a job offer? Where is this coming from?”

“A firm in Milan, looking for a programmer with experience in financial software. It’s pretty much all but got my name on it.”

“Well,” Raúl snaps, furiously, “nice of you not to leave me hanging or anything. Not like you’re needed here in any way.”

Luís blinks. “What? No- look, I thought you could come with.”

That pulls Raúl up short again. He feels as though he’s stuck on a fairground ride, being swung violently in every which way.

“There are plenty of openings –more than enough- for people with your skills, and your qualifications. Your CV can’t be rejected, not with how Pep dressed it up and now all this honest-to-god work experience.”

Raúl frowns. “You said you wanted to stay in Madrid. What about all the opportunity here? We’ve actually- we’ve got something going here; you can’t just leave it.”

Luís looks somewhat rueful, at the very least. “I know. And really, we’ve been firing on all cylinders and I honestly wouldn’t leave except I have this feeling about Milan. It’s the place, I know it is.”

It can’t be denied that Luís’ feelings usually haven’t led him astray. If Luís has a sense about Milan, it might very well be that Milan was the way to go. But Raúl can’t bring himself to leave Madrid. Even if they hadn’t had a firm place to stand on here, he doesn’t think he could have left the city. He’s never wanted to be anywhere but Madrid, even during those admittedly miserable days as an intern with no visible prospects. Madrid is wholly, viscerally, his.

It must show on his face, because Luís’ expression has fallen somewhat. “You’re not going to leave, are you?”

Raúl shakes his head.

“Would it help if I said please?”

That gets him a grin for his trouble. “No, but thanks for the sentiment anyways.” Raúl is still feels as though the rug has been pulled out from under him and he’s angry but rationally, he understands. Luís isn’t the kind to stay still for very long. He’s always looking for the next interesting thing to catch his imagination, for the next bright spark he can fan into a fire. Raúl could have seen this coming.

Luís sighs, and Raúl knows that he’s not going to be argued with. It’s another thing that Luís is good at: he’s incredibly stubborn, but he has an unerring internal gauge for which battles are best left unfought. “For the record,” Luís says, “The only reason I’m not forcibly going to be dragging you to Milan is because I honestly think you’re going to be fine on your own. So please don’t think I’m just...abandoning you here.

“You do most of the work here anyways. All the CEOs and et ceteras that we talk to? They want a competent guy with a suit and a handful of university degrees to tell them he’s going to take the helm and guide them through these stormy, miserable seas. And that guy is you.” Luís shakes his head, a sort of admiration in his voice. “Honestly, I do wish things weren’t so shit around here these days because you would have been successful on the right side of the tracks. But we got landed with this. And all things considered, I think you’re doing pretty well.” He looks Raúl in the eye, almost uncomfortably so. “You have Xavi’s information. He’ll give you a hand in case you need anything down, like falsifying records or the like, and if you can bring yourself not to delete my number in a fit of betrayed rage...”

Raúl snorts. He’s no good at staying mad. He never has been. He can’t bring himself to begrudge Luís anything. “If I need anything I’ll call you or Xavi. And don’t worry,” he adds, “whatever you find in Milan? I’ll have twice as much here in Madrid, just you watch.”

There’s not a shred of teasing in Luís’ voice. “I’m sure you will,” he says. “I expect nothing less from you.”

 

\--

 

The day after Luís leaves Raúl takes his name off the door and tries not to feel too melodramatic about it. It’s professional, he tells himself. There’s neither time nor place for sentimentality when he suddenly finds himself in sole charge of a business that’s only about 50% legitimate. And he really had stopped being angry with Luís almost immediately.

None of which stops Raúl from doing what any sensible businessman would do after such an upheaval. He goes to his favourite bar and he gets hammered.

When he walks in the place is scattered here and there with a few small clusters of people, the general crowd for a Friday night. He settles himself down at the end of the bar and notices Guti, setting out shot glasses for a few excitable-looking twenty-somethings.

Raúl knows Guti. Or at least, he knows him in the way that people know the bouncer-slash-part-time-bartender at their regular bar: in a sort of tentative, ‘I’m glad that I’ve come here enough for you to stop giving me the evil eye when I walk through the door, because at this point I’m not going to cause trouble’ way that entitles him to give a little wave when they make eye contact, but is not enough to have ever had an actual conversation with the man. Guti also presumably has a full name but it’s the only thing Raúl’s ever heard him referred to as, usually in the context of ‘Guti, please be so kind as to forcibly extract payment for the broken table from that kid, and then throw him out on his ear’.

So while it’s not surprising that Guti gives him a nod when he serves Raúl his usual, it is a bit off-script when he tilts his head and says, “You look like you’ve just been spat out the mouth of something nasty.”

Raúl blinks but doesn’t let it phase him. He’s become extraordinarily adept at rolling with the punches over the past year and getting vaguely insulted by a not-quite-stranger is hardly something to ruffle his feathers. He shrugs. “It’s been a long week.” And then, because Guti’s got these glittering eyes that simultaneously give him an air of being on the cusp of bursting out laughing but also of listening attentively, he goes on. “My business partner recently took another offer and I’ve been left scrambling a bit to adjust. Nothing impossible but- not exactly what I’d wanted to do with my weekend.” He grins ruefully. “And now I’m whingeing about it in a bar. Didn’t think I was this upset about it but I guess I am.”

Guti nods, sympathetic but unbothered. “Sometimes life tips you up like that.”

“I’ll drink to that.” And so he does.

He drinks to it several times, in fact, and ends up a few more sheets to the wind than he’d originally planned. Guti drifts efficiently up and down pouring out drinks and exchanging the occasional word with the patrons. It’s a large crowd that night but a fairly quiet one, so Guti stays behind the bar and Raúl’s eyes stay on Guti.

It is a wholly unconfirmed rumour that Guti used to –and possibly still did- pick up cash by providing personal services of a more intimate nature than bartending. Raúl can see why the rumour exists, his eye for that kind of observation sharpened by drinking and the late hour. Guti is undeniably attractive, both delicately pretty and sharply handsome at the same time. He’s coiled like a spring ready to leap out, and while Raúl might not exactly want to be in the line of fire when Guti did make that violent leap, he can see how some people might find it a desirable quality.

Not only did Guti have a rumour-shrouded past, but he was also just interesting. Raúl has been coming to the bar long enough to have picked up on this fact, hearing Guti light-heartedly talk politics or on one occasion, shout insults at the television which was airing some sort of quiz show featuring what Guti seemed to think were particularly incompetent contestants. Raúl is fascinated by Guti, he’ll admit that much. He might even admit that he wasn’t quite that immune to Guti’s unique combination of charms.

It doesn’t help that now he hears Guti discussing the dismal state of the economy at the far end of the bar, going beyond the territory of ‘everything’s shit’ and into what sounds to be a fairly informed analysis of why everything was shit, and Raúl’s just drunk enough to find informed economic discussions to be a slight bit of a turn on.

He downs his drink with a grimace and the next time Guti glides by Raúl flags him down. Guti stops, appraises him, and grins, showing a few too many teeth to be categorised as a fully friendly expression. “I think I might have to cut you off soon.” He looks pointedly at Raúl, but pours another drink nonetheless and passes it to him. “I can call you a cab, if you want.”

Raúl shakes his head. “No worries, I’m finishing up here. Well,” he considers after a moment, when the prospect of staggering back to his flat in the dark starts seeming more and more terrible, “I might still want the cab.”

Guti laughs, half-way between genuine amusement and the polite laugh of the customer service employee.

“I heard you talking earlier,” Raúl says, downing his glass, “and I have to ask- are you an economics student?”

Guti wrinkles his nose in dramatised repulsion. “God, no. I can say with certainty that I am not an economics student.”

Raúl frowns. “You sure sounded like one back there.”

“I’ve picked up stuff along the way. I can throw around polysyllables as well as the next guy.”

But Raúl is already shaking his head before Guti’s even done refuting. “No, no- you really knew what you were talking about. I know ‘cos I know what I’m talking about when I talk about that stuff. And you knew. You knew what you were talking about.”

Guti grins again, seemingly unbothered by Raúl’s increasingly rambling sentences, and again there are a few too many teeth. “Well, working here was never my first choice of career goals.” He taps his fingers against the bar top, staccato. “I was at school going for political science a few years ago but.” He spreads his hands slightly to gesture to the room at large. “You can see how that worked out.”

“What happened?” Raúl asks, just drunk enough to ask the borderline rude question and not bother with hedging. Guti doesn’t seem to mind.

“Outstanding tuition fees and just a tiny bit of violent conduct.” The grin intensifies and Raúl thinks privately that while Guti seems suited in his current employment of wrangling drunken patrons, he might have been terrifyingly good at working the political game. “Just a bit of scrapping, really, but along with the money troubles I figured it was best if I dropped out before they could kick me out.” He spreads his hands palms-up across the bar. “So I’m here.”

“Do you usually tell your life story to strangers?”

“Hey, you were the one who asked.” Guti says mildly. “And I would hope my ‘life story’ is a bit more expansive than a couple semesters of half-hearted higher education.”

“Huh,” says Raúl, and tries to sit down again on his stool but misses it by a hand span, beginning to topple over. Guti makes a grab at him and hauls him back up. Raúl mentally adds good reflexes to the list of things he likes about Guti. It’s beginning to run on a bit.

“Okay, might be time to get you in a taxi.” Guti says cheerfully. Pushing the intoxicated out the door is what he does for a job, but Raúl flatters himself to think that Guti is lending him a hand out of some sense of burgeoning camaraderie. It’s a nice thought.

So he settles his bill and lets himself be walked out to the sidewalk, and promptly nearly falls over again stumbling right off the kerb. Guti catches him again by the arm, laughing, and Raúl makes a decision.

“Look,” he says suddenly, and maybe it’s only because he’s drunk or because he knows what it’s like to run yourself aground in a dead-end job that you never intended to get stuck in, or maybe it’s just that he likes the way Guti’s fingers curl neatly around his forearm, but he wants to ask something. “Can I make you an offer?”

There’s a wholly uncomfortable beat in which Guti carefully releases Raúl, stepping back. “I don’t know what you’ve heard,” he says, voice level but again Raúl can sense that coiled spring underneath his words and in his eyes, ready to fly out, “but I don’t do that kind of thing, alright? So you can-”

Raúl remembers the vague unsubstantiated rumours and realises the misunderstanding almost immediately. “Oh no, no,” he interrupts, hastily because Guti’s shoulders have gone rigid and he looks like he’s about to turn on his heel, “Sorry, I talk like an idiot when I’m drunk, and I should have said, I should have said, can I offer you a job?”

The spring in Guti’s eyes unwinds slightly. He still looks suspicious and Raúl makes a mental note that if this...thing, this plan forming in his head works out he’s going to have to remember not to tread on Guti’s landmines.

“Like I said I’m left in the lurch right now and I’m a bit short-staffed.” i.e. it’s me, myself, and I and we are doing our best not to give up the ghost of some ridiculous scheme offered me by a man I met by a copy machine.

Guti frowns. “You said you’d lost your business partner. I know jack shit about business, management or sales or whatever, I don’t think-”

Raúl interrupts again. In hindsight he’s probably not making a great impression. But then again he is fairly drunk, he thinks he can be forgiven. He hopes so. He’s liking Guti more and more with every word they exchange. “That’s fine, really. I do a lot of face-to-face consulting and it looks better if there’s someone else in the room. You wouldn’t have to say much but even so, I heard you earlier. You talking earlier and you sounded good, really good.” He lets an admiring note drop into his tone that, while honest, he does play up just a tad. That had been one of the things that had gotten him when Luís had roped him into this mess in the first place: Luís had talked to him as though he was better for something other than menial office labour. Raúl suspects Guti might feel in a similar way. “I don’t care when or where you dropped out, you know your shit.”

There’s the shadow of a look of gratification on Guti’s face, just playing around the corners of his mouth, but he’s shaking his head and beginning to say something that feels a lot like a thanks but no thanks and for some reason it is suddenly very important to Raúl that he hires Guti. He doesn’t know why, only that Guti is interesting and sharp and a bit mean and far too clever to be working night after night in a dingy bar while the world goes to shit around him.

A cab finally notices them and pulls up to the kerb, and Guti begins shepherding Raúl over. The driver rolls down the window. “I’d like payment up front for this one,” he says, ignoring Raúl’s half-hearted protest that he wasn’t that drunk. “Where’s he going?”

Raúl duly gives him the address and hands over a few crumpled bills. “Oughta cover it.”

Guti raises his eyebrows but doesn’t say anything. Raúl wonders how much cash he’d given the driver but can’t really be bothered. He’s got concerns other than paying double or more for a cab ride. Well, hopefully it’s not more. Raúl is still unused to his relatively new liquidity and old penny-pinching habits didn’t so much die hard as prove to be supernaturally unkillable.

“At least consider it,” Raúl tells Guti, fumbling to get all his limbs into the cab. His legs are being unfairly uncooperative and he gets the sense that Guti is trying not to laugh at him. “You wouldn’t even have to give up your job here if you didn’t want to. Take me on as a trial run. Please.”

Guti’s hand is on the door, ready to close it. He looks down at Raúl, thoughtfully. “Okay,” he says, “here. Give me your phone.” He holds out a hand and Raúl obediently produces his Blackberry. “I’m putting my number in here. If you haven’t changed your mind when you’re sober in the morning, then you call me.”

He hands the Blackberry back and closes the door. Raúl watches him step back onto the pavement as the cab drives off. He’s doesn’t go back into the bar and Raúl can see him standing there, a thin, strangely translucent figure, until the cab takes a turn and Guti slips out of sight.

 

 


	2. I.ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This evening I made the executive decision that writing an essay earlier than twelve hours before the due date was for nerrrds so I worked on another bit of this instead. Thanks to everyone who suffered through the excessive exposition in the first chapter! :D

 

 

Raúl wakes up with what feels like a good four or five cotton balls sticking closely to the back of his tongue. The sun is glaring through the windows where he had neglected to draw the curtains the night before, the rays unrelenting against his eyelids. He doesn’t seem to have a headache though. Small mercies.

He sits up. The headache makes an appearance. So much for a kind and loving universe.

He groans and lets himself fall back against the pillow. He hadn’t even been that drunk the night before. It’s not fair that he should feel so miserable. It’s probably more the combination of the hangover plus the stress of Luís leaving, and having to deal with this...whatever it was, on his own, without-

Raúl blinks, and the fog of sleep and hangover dissipates slightly. He remembers talking to Guti from the bar, being shepherded out to catch a taxi, asking Guti-

Asking Guti if he wanted to take Luís’ vacated post. Right. He had offered Guti a job. Guti, whom he barely knew.

Call me when you’re sober, Guti had told him. He remembers that much. So Raúl grabs at his Blackberry where it lies on his small nightstand and scrolls through his contacts to _G_ but to his consternation, Guti’s name isn’t there. Raúl wonders for a moment if he had hallucinated the whole thing, of if he’d fallen for the simple trick of Guti taking his phone just to shut him up and not putting anything in it at all, until he realises that the man’s full name can’t possibly just be _Guti_ , and he returns to the top of the list to slowly scroll through and look.

This time he’s more successful. Under J: _José-María Gutiérrez._

Raúl dials and patiently waits, but the ringing phone goes unanswered and he gets voicemail. It’s a default message, just a robotic voice informing him that that the number he had dialled was unavailable at this time, and would he like to leave a message?

Raúl clears his throat. “Uh, hi. It’s me, from the bar last night. Raúl. It’s Raúl. I, um, think I offered you a job and you said to call you back and well, I’d still like you to work with me or at least give it a shot, so. Call me back. Thanks.” He hangs up, feeling like an idiot. He’s supposed to be good at talking, even if the situation is a little awkward. He probably shouldn’t have called. Guti hadn’t seemed terribly thrilled at the prospect of a new job, and even though that could have been attributed to the fact that the person offering had been finding standing upright a difficult task at the time, he might have had any number of reasons for rejecting Raúl’s offer.

Whatever. The voice mail was sent. If Guti really wasn’t interested, he didn’t even have to call back.

The second the thought completes itself in Raúl’s head, his phone rings.

José-María Gutiérrez, calling.

“Hello?”

“Hi. I got your message.”

“That was quick.” Raúl comments, pleased. He’d expected a few hours at least, if Guti ever even did return the call. “So...I’m still offering. I think you’re the guy for this position.”

“As your business partner,” Guti says, his scepticism clear through the phone line. “You realise I have absolutely no qualifications whatsoever. I told you that I’m a poli-sci drop-out?”

“I remember. But honestly, it’s almost better that- well, I mean, the work isn’t really-” he grapples with what he wants to say for another moment before deciding just to go for it. He doesn’t get the impression that Guti’s the type to go running to the authorities at slightest notice. When Raúl pictures the model citizen that takes it upon themselves to report any and every hint of wrongdoing, Guti isn’t exactly who springs to mind. He’s suddenly reminded of asking Luís a similar question. He wonders if Luís had gotten the same sense about him; the sense that this was someone he could trust.

“I might as well just tell you: this job. There’s a large aspect of it that isn’t exactly, well, legal.”

“Oh?” says Guti, and for the first time he sounds interested. “Tell me more.”

“I really am a business consultant,” Raúl admits. “I do actually do the work. But there’s also a fair amount of- well, a pyramid scheme, really.” He gives Guti a truncated version of the spiel that Luís had once given him, carefully dismissing the large sum of money that props the whole thing up simply as ‘funds’ without divulging their source. No need to get into overly involved details about mass theft before he’s even sure if Guti is going to take him up on the offer. He’s no Luís.

“...and because you actually provide the services you advertise for, your clients just let you right in the door.” Guti sounds impressed. “But what exactly do you need me for?”

The déjà vu grows stronger. This has all happened before, with Raúl in Guti’s place. “Like I said,” he says, ignoring the unsettled feeling in his stomach that isn’t entirely due to the hangover, “You wouldn’t have to do or say much. The guy you’re replacing –Luís- had some real genius in getting clients on the hook, which was vital when we were just starting. But reputation has its own momentum, and I always dealt with the business side of things anyways. Right now, to tell you the truth, I’m running a company of one. Myself. It looks better if González Business Consultancy is a bit more than one scrawny guy in a suit.”

Guti laughs. Raúl feels gratified.

“So really all you have to do is come to meetings with me and basically act as my second-in-command, to give the illusion that the company has some structure. One guy looks too much like a con, even if I do have _such_ a nice office.” He drawls out the _such_ so Guti knows it’s a joke, and is rewarded by another laugh over the line. It’s a nice laugh, far more genuine than the slightly aloof and distracted laugh that Raúl has heard Guti perform at the bar when a difficult customer is trying to plead their case. He likes it. “And really, I think you’re selling yourself short when you say you don’t know anything about business.”

“I think my exact words were ‘jack shit about business’, and why would I lie about it?”

Raúl shrugs, even though Guti can’t see him. “Not lying, just downplaying. If you actually knew nothing, you wouldn’t say so as often as you do.”

Guti doesn’t reply and Raúl worries that he’s offended him, so he hurries on. “I’d really like to work with you. Really.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Guti says, but his tone is casual rather than warning.

“I’d like to.” Raúl winces as soon as he’s said the words. What kind of cheesy, quasi-flirtatious garbage-

But Guti is snickering, unoffended. “If you’re going to start turning out daytime TV lines, I think I’ll take my chances without the surely thrilling and glamorous life of crime.”

It’s a joke but Raúl picks up on the implication. “So you’ll take it? The job?”

A pause, and then he can practically hear Guti shrug in the lopsided way that Raúl has noticed about him. “Yeah, I’ll do it. Should I, I dunno, come around to your office for like, a briefing?”

“Actually, that’d be great.” Raúl tells him, trying not to let the near-ridiculous excitement he’s feeling bubble up into his tone. “When’s the earliest you can make time? Here, I’ll give you the address.”

Dates and times are set, and Raúl is about to hang up when he remembers. “By the way,” he says, “What name do you go by? You put José-María into my phone but-”

Guti laughs. “God, no, that’s just a bad habit of good manners. Guti’s fine, it’s what everyone calls me.”

 

\--

 

The first time Raúl takes Guti with him to meet a potential client, he’s quick with the assurances that he’ll do all the talking, and really Guti’s only job is to fill space in the room and look professional.

“If for some reason you get a question thrown at you, just say something vague but comfortingly laced with buzzwords. Something that sounds good and might actually be real. It could be bullshit or not, but the point is to sell it well enough that people _want_ to believe that it isn’t. Right now they’re looking for lifelines, and aren’t going to be examining if what they’re grabbing is a rope or a snake; they’re just happy to have something in their hands.”

“Sure, I get it,” Guti says easily, slipping on his new blazer. He looks good in business attire, and Raúl _notices._ “At the bar we’re always having to dish out platitudes. No, your wife isn’t going to leave you. Buy her some flowers and have a heart-to-heart. Don’t worry that no one’s gone for the novel yet, most geniuses are misunderstood for years before they get discovered. Good things are always around the corner.” He grins. “Part of the job. I’m _very_ good at telling people want they want to hear while not really saying anything at all.”

_Yeah,_ Raúl thinks, watching Guti’s lips curl over white teeth. _I bet you are._

 

\--

 

He really is. Right from the beginning, Raúl’s clients like Guti. He’s all neat professionalism in a suit but with that swish of blonde hair falling just enough into his eyes to give him a casual air, the rings on his fingers adding a bit of sparkle. He draws attention, and draws questions. Questions to which he rises spectacularly. If Raúl didn’t know otherwise, he would have sworn that Guti was at least as qualified as he was pretending to be.

Raúl brings it up to him one day after a particularly good performance on Guti’s part. They’d landed their most prestigious client yet, a well-known printing firm that did specialty work for a variety of other businesses, and Raúl had decided that they celebrate the small but important step up on the ladder by going out for a late lunch at a nice restaurant before Guti had to clock in at the bar.

“Get something expensive,” he advises, flipping open the menu, “because that’s what I’m going to do. I’m charging this straight to the company bank account and I don’t want to feel guilty later because I got the priciest thing on the menu and you got a salad.”

“I hear and obey,” Guti says cheerily. “Although it’s a great sacrifice, ordering this thirty euro slice of meat with a vaguely foreign name.”

It’s while Guti is sawing at said slice of meat in an inelegant but determined way that Raúl mentions it. He puts his spoon down from his elaborately prepared soup (€24) and Guti looks up expectantly, sensing a question.

Raúl goes right in without preamble. He’s slowly learning that Guti gets annoyed by excessive hedging and disclaimers before a question. He’s either going to answer or not, and assorted _I don’t mean to be rude_ and _I’ve recently been wondering a lot about so and so_ aren’t going to make a difference to that.

“You’re really good at this,” Raúl says. “Not that I didn’t think you would be, it’s why I wanted you in on it, but I mean you are _really_ good at it. Talking to people, reassuring them, getting them to hand over their stock portfolios. All that. I mean, you did say you were but it’s really impressive.”

Guti answers before Raúl’s even asked an actual question. He can see what’s being driven at. “I didn’t mention it before because we didn’t go into detail about my brief but glittering university career,” he says, the usual edge of self-mockery that always makes an appearance when he refers to his student days tinting his words, “but while I studied political science I also had a secondary subject.”

Raúl inclines his head slightly, a gesture for Guti to go on, he’s listening.

“Ready?” Guti leans forward conspiratorially. “Theatre. I was a theatre student.”

Raúl laughs, surprised. “No way.”

Guti smiles. “Absolutely. I was the master of the stage.”

“You were an actor?”

“Is it really that surprising?”

No, thinking about it, it’s not surprising at all. He just hadn’t been expecting it. Raúl hadn’t known many arts students at university but he supposes that Guti does fit the bill. A little bit flamboyant and a little bit unhinged in a creative rather than a stressed-about-career-trajectories way. “No, it makes a lot of sense.”

“So I guess I’m just good at lying. That’s what acting is, really, and even though you’re actually a business consultant –and a good one- at the end of the day it’s the nice big lie that happens to have a lot of cash rewards.”

Raúl mulls that one over before asking, “So, did you ever get any leads? What’s the best role you ever played?”

Guti looks slightly taken aback but pleased by the question, and it’s not until he’s managed to get from his favourite role to the story of the time he nearly fell off the stage to the tale of the understudy who genuinely tried to kill someone to the convoluted plot of a strange German avant-garde piece he’d been excited about before dropping out that Raúl realises they’ve been long done with their food, sitting at the restaurant for nearly three hours and Guti has to be at work in less than one.

“Shit, the time. Sorry, I’ve kept you.” He starts rummaging in his pockets for his wallet.

Guti shrugs, the afterimage of his smile still playing about his lips, sitting back in his chair, relaxed. “Not like I have anything better to do at home.” He pauses and adds, sincerely, “Thanks.”

Raúl blinks. “It’s your money as much as mine paying for all this.”

“Not the food. For everything. I’ve been enjoying myself.”

The statement is somewhere between a comment on their conversation and an observation of Guti’s general state of being, and Raúl settles in the middle of the two. He thinks about the way Guti’s fingers look while signing his looping signature with a flourish and the sound of his voice when he rolls out his smooth assurances to investors that even in these times of economic downturn, prosperity is possible if one only _adapts_ to the circumstances, and I promise you, adaptation is our _speciality._

Raúl grins. He’s been enjoying himself as well.

 

 

The thing is that Guti is easy to talk to. Almost terrifyingly so. He’s clever and disagrees with Raúl on just enough to make him a compelling conversation partner, and what they do see eye to eye on helps stitch their styles together and make them a good team. He’s a puzzle piece that slots in perfectly next to Raúl. Working with Luís had been thrilling in its way, but with Guti Raúl is running on more than just adrenaline rush. With Guti he feels powerful, as though they could take on the entire world if they wanted.

And Guti isn’t just whip-smart and interesting. He’s a bit wild and a bit reckless and makes Raúl feel simultaneously both too responsible and excitingly free, a study in contrasts when Guti eggs him on, both of them drinking too much and then Raúl making sure they both stumble home alright. He knows he doesn’t _need_ to worry; he knows Guti goes out without Raúl and manages to take care of himself just fine, but Raúl doesn’t like to think about it. He doesn’t like to think about Guti, drunk and alone, walking through the winding streets of Madrid back to the crumbling brownstone where he lives. It’s too lonely, somehow. Guti sleepless in the night, eyes red-rimmed and feet shuffling.

So he takes Guti home, the drunk leading the drunk, to the ramshackle little apartment where sometimes Guti’s room mates will already be home and sometimes they won’t. Raúl’s still not entirely sure if Guti lives with two other people or three, as the cast of characters lurking about seems to rotate just enough that the permanent number remains out of his grasp. Raúl has never gone beyond the living room onto which the door opens, although to be honest, he doesn’t really care to. What he can see of the place is always dark and reeks of cigarette smoke. Raúl’s flat isn’t _neat,_ but it’s _clean_ in a way that this one isn’t. They always go to his if they want, and that’s fine by Raúl. Guti doesn’t talks about his living situation. Raúl doesn’t ask.

It’s becoming a common theme in their relationship.

 

\--

 

A few months into the partnership of González and Gutiérrez and it’s one of those rare occasions when Raúl is far drunker than Guti is. Guti has been caught up in one of the moods that sometimes swept him and Raúl has taken him out to a tacky discotheque in an effort to cheer him up, but despite this Guti has barely touched anything, opting instead to watch Raúl make an idiot of himself on the dance floor. He’s grinning though, so Raúl counts it as half a victory.

Raúl drinks because it’s a Friday and he can. They’ve successfully landed a new client who had wanted them to handle his portfolio immediately and begun talks with another and on top of it all he’s been feeling happy lately- really, truly _happy._ When he’d first started working with Luís he’d been happy, but it had been happiness of change, happiness to _not_ be doing what he had been doing. Recently he’s been happy just _doing_. A contented happy. He likes going into the little office and seeing Guti and working out ways they can expand their customer base and talking through managing the money they had and watching football on the crappy little colour set in Raúl’s apartment and going to the bar. He’d always had a lot of spare time since he set his own hours, but before Guti they had been filled alone. Most of Raúl’s friends from school had real jobs, jobs with time schedules and punch cards, rather than jobs where they could sit about waiting for the phone to ring and for people to essentially hand them piles of money to look after. Now Guti is quickly becoming the way Raúl spends his time. Guti always has something interesting to do.

And speaking of-

“Guti. _Guti.”_ Guti doesn’t turn around. Raúl reaches out and grasps at his shoulder. Guti jumps slightly, and twists to see Raúl grinning tipsily at him.

“Exactly how much have you had to drink?”

Raúl feigns an expression of hurt. “Don’t you trust me? Do you not trust me Jo- José- Chema. Chema, Chema, how much your employer has had to drink is no business of yours.”

There’s a strange expression on Guti’s face. Raúl frowns. “You look weird.”

 “How dare you,” Guti says, feigning hurt and rearranging his facial features into neutrality. “I always look perfect.”

Raúl shrugs. He can’t argue. “Okay, it’s true. You always look perfect. Perfect, wonderful, all that.”

“I should be filming this for posterity,” Guti remarks dryly, looping an arm around Raúl’s waist and steadying him. The strange look has passed from his eyes, and he looks a good deal happier than when Raúl had initially dragged him out. Raúl is too pleased by the success in lightening Guti’s mood to mind that the source of said happiness was likely seeing Raúl make an idiot of himself. Mission accomplished, no matter what the sacrifice.

“Let’s leave,” Raúl suggests, and Guti smirks.

“Oh, you think it might be time? Had enough, have we?”

“I would say so.” Raúl says, attempting for dignified but somewhat missing the mark, considering the way he’s barely standing even with Guti’s support.

Guti tightens his hold on Raúl’s waist and gives Raul a gentle knock on the side of his head. “Okay,” he says, “let’s leave.”

 

 

When Raúl wakes up the next morning he finds Guti in his kitchen, assembling breakfast. There’s a tangled assortment of blankets on the couch where Guti had apparently spent the night. Raúl winces both from hangover and rueful embarrassment. “Sorry you had to deal with me last night.”

Guti shrugs. “No worries.” He peers into the toaster. “How brown do you like your toast?”

 

 

They’re eating in companionable silence, Raúl squinting at the newspaper through fuzzy eyes and trying to find his sense of personhood at the bottom of a mug of extremely black coffee, when Guti looks up from his scone and says, apropos of nothing, “I haven’t been called that since I was a kid, you know.”

Raúl blinks at him, uncomprehending. “Sorry?”

“Chema. No one’s called me that for years.”

Memories of the previous night begin to filter through the haze in Raúl’s head. He vaguely remembers thinking something along the lines of _José-María’s too long a name_ and producing the nickname instead. He frowns apologetically. “Oh, right. Sorry. I was, um, pretty bad at that point. Don’t really know where I was going.”

It’s not entirely true. He _had_ been drunk, quite drunk, really drunk, but he knows why he’d produced the nickname when Guti ostensibly had one already. _Guti’s fine, it’s what everyone calls me_. And it wasn’t entirely rational, but Raúl knows what he’d been thinking: thinking that he wanted something to call Guti just for himself, as though he somehow had some claim over him more than anyone else did.

He doesn’t voice his thoughts aloud. He knows Guti well enough to be sure that they went far beyond the line that Guti had drawn about himself. He doesn’t push it and lets Guti dictate the boundaries of their relationship, whatever they might be. Raúl hopes that their association is more than a merely business one by now, but whenever he thinks about it being perhaps even more than _that_ he gets a twisting in his stomach that reminds him uncomfortably of the way he had felt about his first crush when he was twelve. Childish. Wistful.

 

\--

 

The year drags out into winter and the economy is still a shambling mess, both globally and locally, but Raúl is doing well for himself.  His circle is growing and with it, his reputation as a stockbroker to the point that more often than not he gets new clients who only want him to take care of their investments without having businesses for him to patch up. The private sector is a lucrative one. He does his job well, so well that sometimes he thinks they could probably go legitimate, the way he’d always considered when Luís had first roped him in. But then he looks at the numbers rolling in steadily month by month, and he knows he’ll never be able to quite bring himself to let go. There a near-exhilaration that comes from both doing a job he’s good at and enjoys, and running an illegal operation just underneath. It’s almost too easy. Laundering the money isn’t a problem because it comes from the coffers of people who are willingly giving it to him. Not that anyone is looking for anything out of the ordinary. Raúl is just another small-time white collar business trying to live through another day in a city full of them. No one’s bothering with Raúl González. Not yet.

 

 


	3. I.iii

 

It’s early on a Saturday but Raúl still goes to the offices because he wants to plan out the pitch for his latest client, a small but well-known investment firm that was hit relatively lightly by the crisis (and that by its own nature is really going to be a straight forward piece of work with none of the usual skulduggery, as Raúl thinks that even Guti’s charms might find it difficult persuading an investment firm to part ways with control over its own portfolio), and he finds it easier to concentrate in the small but neat office than in his also-small but cluttered and dingy apartment. He needs to move, he decides, punching in the code for the building and entering the small lobby. Not to anywhere ridiculous, but he has the money and he might as well upgrade to an apartment where he didn’t have to let the water run for a good five seconds before it turned from rust to clear.

He runs through potential places in Madrid while in the elevator, and is just making a mental note to pick up a paper to look through the housing section as he turns the key in his door and opens it to find Guti, asleep on the small couch that Raúl and Luís had crammed into the microscopic reception area leading to the two offices.

Guti jolts upright when Raúl opens the door and he’s apologising before Raúl can even say anything.

“Guti, _Guti.”_ Raúl cuts off the string of ‘sorrys’. “Why’re you here? Did something happen with your place?”

“No,” Guti says, a second too quickly, “No, I’m- it’s fine. I just.” He chews his bottom lip. “I was out last night. Drinking. Lost the key to my flat but I still had the one to the office, so I came up here to sleep. Sorry.” He’s wearing a strange expression torn between consternation and defiance, apologetic but at the same time daring Raúl to get angry.

Raúl has seen Guti’s keychain. The key to his flat, the key to the office, the key to the backroom of the bar, and a battered Real Madrid pendant that looks as though it was probably dangling off of a grade school backpack long before it joined Guti in the adult world. He’s never seen Guti separate the keys or take them off of the ring for any reason. He’s also never known Guti to lose _anything_ important –wallet, phone, keys- when he drinks, even on the nights when he edges a dangerous territory that almost frightens Raúl, knocking back shots with vicious abandon until he can barely walk or talk or see straight. But Raúl only shrugs. “Your name’s on the door next to mine. No reason why you shouldn’t sleep here if you need to.  For whatever reason.” He looks Guti straight in the eye, a little feeling in the back of his throat needing him to make Guti understand that if he ever needs a place to go, if he ever needs _anything-_

“Thanks.” Guti’s voice takes on an odd cast. He sounds uncertain of himself. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

Seeing Guti there, hair rumpled and dark rings under his eyes, and how he’d been curled tightly onto the too-small couch, Raúl realises he might not be the only one needing a new place. And as well as a new apartment, he might want to start looking for new offices.

 

 

It happens a few more times, Raúl coming in to find Guti on the couch, sometimes still in his work clothes, suit jacket balled up under his head as a pillow and tie loosened around his neck. He doesn’t ask and Guti doesn’t offer any explanation and that’s how it goes until one Thursday Raúl is working late, putting the finishing touches on a proposal for their latest client. He wants to have it done so he can take Friday and the weekend off, maybe to spend a few days at his parents’ house. Guti’d left a few hours earlier to work a short shift at the bar and then presumably go out or go home and Raúl isn’t expecting to see him again until Monday, so when he hears the door click open he stills, on alert. But then Guti is standing in the open doorway to Raúl’s office, looking just as surprised to see Raúl as Raúl is to see him.

“I didn’t realise you’d still be here,” Guti says, frowning. He has a small duffle slung over his shoulder. “Sorry.”

“Your shift’s over? Did you leave something here?” Raúl poses the question carefully, both an out and an invitation. He wants Guti to tell him, to trust him-

“No,” Guti says after a beat. “I was going to spend the night here, actually.”

Raúl has a bizarre instinct to keep still, as if Guti is an animal he doesn’t want to spook. He doesn’t say anything, just waits.

“We’ve recently had to add another room mate,” Guti continues, “to split the rent more, you know. He seemed alright at first but he likes to throw parties and they aren’t really my scene.” He shrugs with forced nonchalance. “It’s easier to just sleep here than to deal with them.”

He makes it sound like it’s no big deal but Raúl narrows his eyes. It’s unlike Guti to be pushed around: if the problem was just overly-loud parties or too many guests he can’t see Guti _not_ simply shouting until he gets his way. He wants Guti to just _tell him_ what the missing detail is –because Raúl is almost certain that Guti is leaving something out- but he’s also figured out by now that if he pushes Guti will close off.

“You don’t have to come to the office,” Raúl offers instead, tentatively. “You can always stay at my place. Just call me. Whenever.”

“Thanks.” Guti says but it’s a rote response and Raúl can tell he has no intention of taking him up on the offer.

“Guti, I mean it.” He reiterates. “Just call me.”

Guti looks at Raúl then. Finally looks at him. “Thank you,” he repeats, and this time his tone is genuine.

 

 

Raúl finishes his work while Guti stretches out –or fails to be able to stretch out- on the couch. When he’s done, Raúl carefully gathers his things and steps out of his office to stand in front of Guti, looking down at him.

“Ask, then.”

“Sorry?”

“Ask.”

Guti looks at him. Raúl holds his gaze steadily. “Alright,” Guti says finally, “can I crash at your place tonight?” The corners of his mouth go tight. “There are some people at mine who I’d rather stay away from.”

“Yes,” Raúl tells him, the puzzle piece dropping into place, “any time, Guti. Any time.”

 

\--

 

Guti looks shifty. For the first time since Raúl’d met him, he seems embarrassed.

“What’s up?”

“I, ah. Have a favour to ask.”

Raúl frowns internally, wondering why Guti is being so hedgy. “Yes?”

Guti scratches at the back of his head self-consciously, the sleeve of his jacket riding up and revealing the tattoos twisting about his wrist. “I’ve got this friend. Well, a connection. He’s more of a connection. Vague...acquaintance.”

“And...? Is he a problem?”

“He’s a middleman of sorts for a syndicate that moves certain substances up from Morocco through Spain and into Europe. I’ve mentioned to him before that I work here, but the other day he asked me if I can fix his books.” Guti laughs a bit ruefully. “Except I took a look and his affairs are honestly in such a mess that I can’t work through them by myself.”

Raúl looks at him and Guti fidgets slightly under his stare. “So...I’m assuming that you’d rather we just actually help him rather than try ripping him off, right?”

Guti blinks. “So you’ll do it?”

“Well yes, I am a legitimate business consultant, you know,” Raúl says with a small smile. “And anyways, I can’t exactly pass judgement on other peoples’ livelihoods, don’t you think? Glass houses and so on.”

Guti smiles back at him. “I was kinda bragging a bit when I talked about this,” he admits, sheepish. “Thanks.”

Raúl hopes his face isn’t going red. The idea of Guti bragging about their work pushes buttons that he hadn’t even known he’d _had._

 

\--

 

“José-María, step into my office.” Raúl says, mock-formally. Guti rolls his eyes but enters through the door that Raúl is holding open for him.

“Your friend,” Raúl begins, dropping into the swivel chair behind his desk, “the one we helped out last week.”

Guti nods. “What about him? Wasn’t he happy with us dragging those accounts out of the deep shit he’d stashed them in?”

“So happy his...well, I guess you’d say supplier? His supplier got in touch with me. He works at the pharmaceutical plant that sources what seems to be a good chunk of the illegal amphetamine trade in central Spain. He wants to hire me. Apparently business has been a little bit too good lately.”

Guti raises an eyebrow. A slow grin spreads across his face. “Laundering drug money now, are we? Well then.”

Raúl wants to blush for some reason.

“And here I was thinking you were the upstanding one,” Guti continues, still flashing smug teeth.

“Hey,” Raúl protests, “Where’d you get that idea? I’m a criminal mastermind.”

“Sure, of course,” Guti says breezily, ignoring the spare chair that Raúl has in his office in favour of perching on top of the desk, carefully arranging himself around a stack of papers (mostly junk mail, but the conscientiousness is touching). “Your fall from grace is fine by me.”

“So...what’d you think?”

“What do _I_ think? I think it’s a great idea. Aren’t you the one always going on about diversifying your portfolio?”

“Well,” Raúl says, “I think I was mostly talking about buying futures in green energy but I see what you mean.”

 

 

Drugs, unsurprisingly, are one of the few substances for which demand has little suffered after the collapse of global markets. If anything, demand has risen. Raúl wonders how many high-powered executives have developed habits in the past year or so. Or moved onto stronger things than they were accustomed to.

“That, my friend,” says Guti in a mock-academic tone, “is what they call inelastic demand.”

Raúl rolls his eyes. “Very good. I see someone took Macroeconomics 101.”

“ _And_ microeconomics; they were required courses for poli-sci.” Guti informs him smugly. “I’m brilliant.”

 

 

So business was going well, both above and below board. Sometimes Raúl thinks about just how much Guti has brought to the table: a whole new facet of operations, to start with, as within a few months of opening his door to it he’s practically reorganised the entire structure of the Madrid amphetamine trade and has a lot of dirty money passing through his hands and coming out shining on the other side. At Guti’s recommendation he’s even been looking into buying warehouse property, seeing as the most secure storage space for delicate substances was currently under the monopoly of a seemingly power-mad landlord who was charging sky-high prices in return for keeping quiet about the contraband being stored in his space.

And with Guti spending more and more nights on Raúl’s couch, Raúl has become accustomed to him being there in the rhythm of things.

 

\--

 

Raúl has barely sat down when the phone rings. He groans and suppresses the urge to thump his head against the desk. He honestly just wants to get home. It’s been a shit day. A client hadn’t been convinced of what Raúl could offer and hadn’t hired him, and Guti had had to be at the bar early for some kind of reserved event –a stag do, he thinks- so they’d been unable to grab their usual lunch after the meeting, which has just added insult to injury. Or more accurately, hunger and lack of conversation to rejection.

He picks up. “Raúl González speaking.” He should probably start looking into a secretary. Or maybe start picking up the phone with a different voice and pretending to hand it over to himself.

“You don’t have a secretary?” says a familiar voice and Raúl sits up, irritation gone.

“Xavi?”

“And the fact that you didn’t already know it was me shows that you don’t have a phone with caller ID either. I thought crime was supposed to pay?”

“Actually I think the phrase goes, ‘crime _doesn’t_ pay,” Raúl says, amused. He hasn’t spoken to Xavi in a while, but the few times it’d been calling for favours (mostly regarding web design and on one occasion, forging a parking sticker so that he and Guti could park a rental car near a San Sebastian beach without having to sell their kidneys). What Xavi could want from him now is a mystery. “And for your information I’m just being frugal. I’m not exactly Fortune 500.”

“You don’t have to be Fortune 500 to have a secretary,” Xavi points out, not unreasonably.

“Yeah, well. How’s Barcelona?”

“Beautiful. Much better than that soulless collection of buildings you call a city. I can’t believe I ever let the bastards transfer me in the first place.” He laughs before switching into a slightly more serious tone. “I have a favour to ask you. I’m trading in all those times you called me at terrible hours to complain about the pile of money we handed to you on a silver platter.”

Raúl protests. “Hey, most of that was Luís.”

“You have inherited his debt. Now listen: I’ve got a friend in Madrid who’s looking for a job. Just graduated law school. He’s excellent but he’s in the same situation you were in. If it were any other time he’d be making junior partner within a few years. But as it is he’ll be stuck in internship after internship, and finally get some bit-part position until the country drags itself back together again and someone can afford to pay him the wage he deserves.”

“So _you_ want to drag him into a life of crime.” Raúl deadpans.

He can practically hear Xavi rolling his eyes. “You’ll like him. Promise. And if you ever get into trouble with your _life of crime_ , he could really help. He’s well-rounded too, good with management and all that...kind of business thing. It’s better than working alone. That’s why Luís came to you in the first place.”

“Well, that’s the thing. Luís’ place- I’ve already filled it.”

A pause. “You’ve got a replacement for Luís?”

“Yeah, a while ago. Name’s Gutiérrez.” Raúl didn’t know what it was about Xavi’s way of speaking that was so infectious, but whenever they spoke he found himself talking in short, choppy sentences. He had a strong suspicion that Xavi did it on purpose to keep control of his conversations. It was difficult to really get into a long, elaborate rant or ramble when talking to Xavi. “He’s good.”

“Not as good as Iker.” Xavi fires back immediately. “Raúl, you know you don’t have a _limit_ on how many employees you can hire. Seeing as you are genuinely running your own company. You don’t have to fire this Gutiérrez.” He lets out a heavy sigh over the line. “Also it would be a big favour to me. You want to expand eventually, right? Might as well start with someone who comes with my guarantee that they’re top-notch.”

Raúl rubs at his eyes. He really doesn’t have a reason not to hire Xavi’s friend. He’s looking at bigger offices anyways, and with the speculations over the warehouses it would be prudent to expand the roster. He already has one foot in the door of the less favourable half of Madrid’s business world. A lawyer might not be bad if he wants to pursue this. Not to mention that someone Xavi was willing to publicly label as a ‘friend’ was more likely than not almost alarmingly competent.

“Okay,” he says. “What’s this guy’s name?”

 

\--

 

Raúl meets Iker Casillas at a large restaurant in the centre of Madrid. Raúl likes it mainly for two reasons: the fish is good and it’s always loud enough to have conversations that he doesn’t want overheard.

Casillas –Iker- is intelligent and clearly itching to be out of the snail’s pace internship he was currently working. Xavi had been right when he’d said Raúl would like him. Iker is serious but doesn’t take _himself_ too seriously; he has an unexpected dry sense of humour that Raúl likes and he seems quiet and efficient. And for a law student, he’s extraordinarily unpretentious. They’ve been talking for barely half an hour before Raúl decides to hire him.

He’s uncertain how much Iker knows or suspects, and he’s surprised when, after running through a brief explanation of his enterprise, Iker interjects, “There is also a less-than above board aspect, right?” He sees Raúl’s expression and adds, in a slightly apologetic tone, “Xavi always tells me everything.”

Since Raúl knows few people more paranoid than Xavi, he decides to take it on merit that Iker is trustworthy. And really, it’s not so much a question of _if_ he’s going to hire Iker as it is _how quickly can he buy Iker a desk._

 

 

Raúl finalises the purchase of the new offices the very next day. The bigger space is welcome: instead a narrow hall, the door of González and Gutiérrez now opens onto a reception area with three frosted glass doors leading into three separate offices, all with large windows looking out onto the city and letting in light. The contrast to the dim, cramped space they’d been working out of is startling.

He spends a day getting the furnishings and equipment moved in and then takes a cab to the bar where Guti is finishing up his shift. The distance is no longer as walkable as it once had been between office and bar but Raúl will take the trade-off of a few extra blocks in exchange for the much needed room to stretch their legs. No respectable money-laundering, stock-fabricating businessman could operate out of a shoebox.

Once Guti is released from work, Raúl drags him to the new office. “I’ve already seen it,” Guti protests, “We both picked it out. Let me go home and sleep, Raúl. I’m operating on three hours, four tops.”

“No, you have to see it with everything moved in and set up.” Raúl explains, although he feels a little guilty for the hollows under Guti’s eyes and the obvious tiredness in his step as they exit the elevator and head down the hall. “Really.  Just for a minute. You won’t regret it.”

He unlocks the door and shows Guti in. Their corner of the building faces the west, and the setting sun is spilling reds and golds through the windows, painting the offices in warm dying light as it drops beneath the Madrid skyline, the shapes of the buildings darkly lined in black and neon along the horizon.

Their old desks and shelves have been moved in along with a few cardboard boxes of personal effects. A small desk has been placed in reception, mostly for show purposes. It’s not a lot, and what is there is mostly battered and looking even more second-rate in comparison with the beautiful glass-and-steel offices, but it’s enough to make the place feel like it’s theirs.

They stand quietly for a minute, taking in the scene before Guti turns to him and smiles. Raúl likes it when Guti smiles his genuine smile as opposed to the mean, coppery grin he sometimes flashes. His whole face crinkles up when he smiles in earnest, beautiful in the glow of the dusk sun.

 


	4. I.iv

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this one! Real life shenanigans, you know.

 

 

Establishing himself as a reliable resource for laundering and general financial wrongdoing in the world of the Madrid illicit drug trade has shockingly few consequences for Raúl.

The purchase of the warehouses even turns out to be almost suspiciously simple, the owner eager to take the price Raúl offered with barely any haggling. Apparently he had been looking for a way out for some time, but the customer base of his storage meant finding a buyer had been extraordinarily difficult. Said customer base also took to Raúl without any fuss, partly due to Guti’s less than savoury connections and partly because Raúl’s own name had been circulating for some time now as a reliable financier for criminal types to turn to. Despite the lack of trouble, Guti insists on taking on the role of manager, when someone might try their hand at pulling one over their new landlords. Meanwhile, Raúl starts getting more and more calls, and finds himself sorting through more and more contraband sales records that range from meticulously kept ledgers to having been scribbled on the backs of crumpled fast food receipts.

It probably should bother him. It doesn’t.

What _does_ bother him is that Guti suddenly finds himself with a lot on his plate. With all the work he does for Raúl, most of which shakes out to be late nights inspecting cargo after the bar has closed, the dark circles under his eyes are becoming a permanent feature.

Things only come to a head when Raúl walks into Guti’s office to ask his opinion on the budget he’s drawn up for a struggling real estate agency, only to find Guti asleep at his desk with his head on his arms. He jolts awake when Raúl walks in, eyes wide for a second before he settles, grinning sheepishly. “Sorry,” he says, pushing his chair back and suppressing a yawn. “Haven’t been getting much sleep lately.”

“You could stop working at the bar, y’know.” Raúl says, walking over to sit on the edge of Guti’s desk in front of him so that his shins knock against Guti’s knees. It’s the only time he’s brought up the fact that Guti is unnecessarily working two jobs since he’d said the same thing only a few weeks after Guti had first joined him. Back then, Guti had shrugged and said lightly that Raúl might still fire him. He’d laughed it off and Raúl hadn’t mentioned it again, sensing the edginess in the corners of Guti’s voice, like he was giving an excuse rather than a genuine reason.

Now Guti just looks at him a little helplessly, a look he’s started wearing sometimes when Raúl pushes the envelope of what Guti is willing to reveal. Raúl is coming to realise that it’s an expression of Guti struggling between having no real reason _not_ to tell Raúl something, and a private code of behaviour he’s been following for too long to break so easily.

“You’re doing far more work than you should be. It’s all your connections getting us clients on the other side of the street and you’re constantly at the warehouses at stupid hours making sure we’re getting our money and only storing drugs rather than, I don’t know, stolen nukes. I need you with me. Quit the bar.”

Guti just shakes his head. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” Raúl is trying not to get frustrated. Since the first time he’d walked in on Guti sleeping on the couch he hasn’t been able to shake the feeling that something is going wrong in Guti’s life, something that Raúl desperately wants to help him with. He just doesn’t know how.

“I like the work,” Guti hedges.

“But not as much as you like the work you do with me.”

“Of course not but that’s the thing, the bar is my work, my own work.” Guti’s eyes are pleading. Every admission is like pulling teeth. “I need _my_ work along with _our_ work.”

He understands then, he really does: Guti needs the sense of independence. The sense that if something went sour between them he could back out without losing his source of income.

Not for the first time Raúl wonders who in the past had twisted Guti’s arm so far that when he’d broken free he’d decided never again to trust anyone more than he absolutely had to. He’ll probably never know unless Guti volunteers the information on his own accord, so likely he’ll have to settle with staying in the dark and navigating his way blindly through the maze of Guti’s intentions.

He sighs. “If you keep this up I’m going to have to make you go fully nocturnal before you die of sleep deprivation, and then you won’t be able to come with me when I need you at meetings and the like. I don’t want to have to start working on my own, even part of the time. I didn’t want to when Luís left and I don’t want to now.” He catches Guti’s gaze, making sure he understands. “I need you. Guti, please. I need you.”

Guti looks at him then, really looks at him, an odd, cautious delight written across his features.

The clock on the wall audibly ticks by the seconds.

“I think I-” Guti begins, and then stops. “I know a guy,” he says, and Raúl has to bite back a laugh because of course he does. Guti always ‘knows a guy’. He’s practically a walking Yellow Pages. “Who we could hire to help out with the heavy lifting. Oversee the warehouses, even deal with communication. It would free me up a lot. I would be able to go to meetings and still be able to keep my job at the bar.”

Raúl frowns. “And your contacts...?”

“I could still deal with any serious deals to be struck.”

Raúl considers. It’s not as if they don’t have the funds for another employee, and it would be nice to have more of Guti’s schedule. Not to mention letting him get to sleep before four in the morning, for a change.

“Okay,” he says, “who’s this guy?”

“His name is Sergio Ramos.” Guti tells him. “And I should warn you, he’s a bit of a...character.”

Raúl raises an eyebrow. “And by this you mean...?”

“Sergio dropped out of high school six months before graduation because he wanted to go to cooking school and he, quote-unquote, ‘couldn’t bear to be sitting around staring at a chalkboard all day while there was food to be made’. So he dropped out, and registered for culinary school using a forged diploma. That lasted a few months before someone found out he never actually graduated high school and he got kicked out. He’s still out of work.” Guti grins, presumably thinking about the redoubtable-sounding Sergio Ramos. “Sergio’s great. And he’s reliable, even though I know he sounds flighty as hell.”

“So long as you trust him.”

Guti nods firmly. “I do. Sergio’s one of my closest friends, after you.”

Raúl feels strangely adrift with the admission. Guti considers him to be his closest friend. There’s a warm glow at the back of his throat and he’s unsure what to say. He wants to return the words but it seems like a terrifically cheesy thing to say, as though they’re grade schoolers exchanging promise rings. _You’re my best friend, too._

They stare at each other in silence for a moment, both slightly embarrassed but pleased, and embarrassed about being pleased.

Guti breaks the atmosphere. “Should we get a pizza?”

“Oh god, yes,” Raúl agrees with great feeling. “Please, let’s.”

 

\--

 

“Raúl, Sergio. Sergio, Raúl.” Guti recites, presenting Raúl with his latest hire. “Ex-student, ex-chef. Now aiding and abetting criminal enterprises. It’s a nice trajectory, huh?”

Sergio offers Raúl a wide, guileless grin and extends his hand. He has a good handshake.

“Nice to meet the Raúl that Guti never shuts up about.” Sergio says, eyes literally twinkling. Raúl has never met anyone with actually twinkling eyes before. He’d always thought it was something that existed solely in poetic license. Apparently not.

Raúl smirks at him. “Never shuts up about, huh?”

Guti rolls his eyes and jabs Sergio in the side with his elbow. “As if I could even get a word in edgewise with this guy. He’s the one who never shuts up.”

Sergio feigns an expression of hurt. “Hey, don’t say that stuff in front of my new boss.”

“It’s mostly heaving lifting and making sure our renters are actually storing what they say they’re storing,” Raúl informs him. “Probably not the most thrilling criminal career. Your kitchens were probably more exciting.”

“Eh, turns out I was terrible at cooking anyways.” Sergio beams. “When do I start?”

 

 

Sergio is really only supposed to be needed at the warehouses and occasionally to go with Guti to provide backup if fists are needed as a bartering tool when negotiating with their seedier clients. Raúl doesn’t expect it when Sergio starts hanging around the office more and more, asking questions. Not even questions about the less-than-legal side of operations, which might have raised a flag (he can’t really imagine Sergio as an undercover cop, but then again that could be a part of the brilliance of the disguise), but questions about Raúl’s actual business: questions about the process of combing through a company and figuring out how to improve it, questions about market mechanisms, and questions about the socio-economic climate of Spain and Europe and the world at large, as though Sergio is an inquisitive student instead of an ex-trainee chef with a fake high school diploma.

He asks Guti about it, unable to figure out why someone who had been too impatient to sit through the last six months of high school in order to pursue the art of the pastry would suddenly find himself fascinated with the mechanics of complicated business economics. It seems improbable that Sergio has discovered a sudden deep love of market structures.

Guti just shrugs. “It’s Iker.”

“Iker?” As far as Raúl knows, Iker mostly just sits at his desk looking through proposals and producing so many loopholes in the Spanish legal code that Raúl is amazed that anyone has even gone to prison, ever.

“He likes Iker. I mean, he likes you and me, as well,” Guti adds, interpreting the faint concern on Raúl’s face, “but he _likes_ Iker. And Iker likes the economy. So Sergio’s, y’know, _taking an interest._ ” Guti emphasises the last few words and raises his eyebrows significantly.

Privately, Raúl thinks it seems as though Sergio mostly just irritates Iker, hanging around his desk with that big grin of his while Iker is running analysis reports on the Spanish pharmaceutical sector, trying to calculate how the market will react to the under-the-table suppliers that Raúl works with. Raúl can hear them bickering sometimes when he has his door open. He voices this opinion to Guti but Guti just looks at him like he’s crazy and so next time Sergio is over Raúl watches closely, and finally catches Iker smiling with quiet but genuine fondness as Sergio takes everyone’s sandwich orders for the deli around the corner, announcing that lunch is on him while they’re all busy finishing up plans to start cutting loose the bottom tier of their investment clients. When Sergio comes back he hands out the sandwiches with great ceremony and doles out kisses on everyone’s cheeks, and Iker, a man who sometimes seems to regard the handshake as being the most physical intimacy two people should ever engage in, doesn’t even protest.

Raúl hadn’t begrudged Sergio the unnecessary time spent around the office, but it does ease his mind a bit that it’s motivated by a crush rather than anything more sinister.

Not long afterwards, Sergio picks up Raúl’s ringing phone before anyone else can get to it and effortlessly charms whoever it is on the other end of the line into scheduling a preliminary session with Raúl while the other three watch in slack-jawed astonishment. Raúl’s reputation has grown steadily over the past few months but not to the point that clients will accept a meeting so quickly, and without even speaking to Raúl himself.

Sergio hangs up and looks around at his audience with innocently wide eyes. “What?”

“Who and _what_ was that?” demands Guti at the same time that Iker says “how did you even know Raúl’s schedule?”

Sergio answers Iker’s question first with a beaming smile (Guti feigns gagging behind him where only Raúl can see), “Raúl’s calendar is right there, and his shorthand is almost embarrassingly easy to figure out.” He points to where indeed the calendar hangs neatly on the wall of the office. “And it was some lady for that guy who owns that fancy French restaurant downtown. Zidane’s, you know. He’s kind of becoming a thing lately. I just told her that Mr. González would be happy to schedule a preliminary consultation, she said sure great and boom, here we are.” He looks at them expectantly. “So? Am I hired?”

Raúl finds his voice. “Hired? Sergio, you’re already hired.”

“Yeah, as your guy with a bunch of muscles.” Sergio says patiently. “I mean, am I hired as your receptionist yet.”

“My what?”

“Your receptionist.” Sergio speaks slowly as if he’s the one with two degrees and all Raúl has to get along with is an incomplete secondary education. “You really shouldn’t be answering your own phone anymore, it sends a bad first impression. You’re supposed to be a big shot.” He peers out the door of Raúl’s office into the mostly unused reception area. “You could throw a better desk out there, give me a phone and a day-planner and I’m all set.” He looks around the office critically. “And you really should put some plants in this place. For ambience and all.”

Sergio’s place in the ledger gets ticked up from ‘commissioned pay’ to ‘office receptions’. He gets his desk, and two plants. He names both of the plants Sergio Jr despite Iker’s protests, and settles into a more permanent role in their lives. Raúl feels vaguely as if he’s just been conned so that Sergio can more efficiently flirt with Iker around the workplace, but Sergio _is_ really quite good at keeping a monthly planner in order so honestly, he can’t much complain.

 

 


	5. I.v

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Finished Yuletide editing earlier than expected! So have one of these.)

Sergio turns out to be invaluable in both his roles. Raúl has managed to garner a modest amount of recognition. So to has Guti. When they are approached and greeted by a client of a few months past in a restaurant, who introduces them to the loose gaggle of investors he is dining with, it becomes apparent that Guti can no longer deal directly with his backroom contacts on their own turf. The danger that he will be spotted by the wrong person is now a real and present one, and Raúl doesn’t want the tenuous rise of his business to be kneecapped by some erstwhile executive recognising one of the founding partners of Madrid’s latest most promising consultancy conspiring with shady types in alleys.

And so Guti continues to deal with his people from the security of their own offices, and Sergio takes over almost entirely as the boots on the ground. People tend to trust Sergio, even people who don’t trust anybody, and he slides into his newly expanded role with ease. And Raúl trusts Sergio too. Sergio isn’t a power-grabbing sort. He’s a leader but not a manager: he has no desire to usurp Raúl.

Raúl starts feeling like he’s really in charge of something. Before, with just Guti and himself working odd hours and spending time in the office mostly because it was nicer there than in either of their actual homes, it had all felt very slapdash. But now, with Iker and Sergio, with the warehouses and the legal consultations and handling illicit finances and actually helping a large swath of more lawful businesses stay afloat, Raúl is undoubtedly doing something. Sometimes he forgets just how much time has gone by, but the three year anniversary of Luís rescuing him from the photocopier had come and gone in the spring.

They’re also making quite a lot of money from the various pies that they now have fingers in, although Iker makes a point of rolling his eyes over how much Raúl and Guti spend going for lunch and drinks and using what they jokingly call the ‘company credit card’. But as Guti says, why would they be going to all this effort to make money if they didn’t spend it on good food and getting hammered, and anyways he knows that Iker’s taken Sergio out for dinner at least twice and billed the company account, so.

Iker goes an interesting shade of red at the last accusation and drops the subject. Guti winks at Raúl who’s trying not to laugh, and mouths something like _I told you so._

 

 

“Far be it from my job to tell you what to do with your money,” Iker says, in the tone of voice he usually adopts when he’s about to tell Raúl just what to do with his money, “but I think we should look into actual investment opportunities for ourselves.”

Raúl raises an eyebrow. “Iker, you do realise that we’re in the middle of a global recession, here. The only reason our investment clients do so well is because, if you hadn’t noticed, we’re actually running a Ponzi scheme.”

“Funnily enough, I had noticed,” Iker says dryly. “Which is exactly my point. We’re financially stable. We oversee a decent percentage of the Madrid drug trade and we’re actively aiding and abetting the criminal element that is contributing to the decline of our once great nation. It’s time for us to give back to the community by putting money the economy instead of just taking it.”

Sometimes Raúl can’t tell whether Iker is being sarcastic or not.

“And by that I mean we should be buying up shares so that when we _do_ pull out of this recession, be it in two years or ten, we’ll be majority shareholders with a lot of staying power in a variety of enterprises. Just in case something happens.”

“Ah,” Raúl says, eloquently.

“Ah indeed.” Iker returns with a small smile. “But it’s your decision, captain.”

“Raúl’s the captain?” Sergio says, rolling half-way into Raúl’s office on his desk chair. “Does that make Guti the vice-captain? What team are we?”

“Does privacy mean nothing to you?” Raúl demands at the same time that Guti, also eavesdropping, yells from his office, “We’re Real Madrid, _obviously_.”

Iker rolls his eyes.

 

 

Raúl takes Iker’s advice because Iker rarely gives poor suggestions, and also because it fits with his own vision for the future. It’s a given that at some point things will start turning around, and while Raúl enjoys consulting for operations both legitimate and otherwise, he wants to branch out. It’s in his nature to diversify, and what better way to do so than by buying shares? It helps that despite Iker’s complaints about pricey lunches, the coffers are full and growing every week.

It seems to be an idea without any drawbacks until a few weeks later the process of becoming a major shareholder in one of Madrid’s more important construction firms suddenly includes Raúl being invited to a dinner and formal event to discuss the future of the corporation.

“Don’t worry about it,” Guti says, a slow grin crossing his face even as the prospect of mingling with the city’s upper crust dawns on Raúl like a miserable wave of dread. “I look great in a tux, let me handle it.”

 

 

As the chips fall, Guti has a shit day at the bar the night they’re supposed to go to the dinner, and arrives at Raúl’s flat looking bone-tired and about ten years older, the skin under his eyes thin and translucent, and the worry lines that criss-crossed his forehead dug deep.

“Guti-” Raúl starts, frowning and stepping forward when Guti arrives and immediately drops to the couch, but Guti waves him off.

“Long day. Give me like, fifteen minutes, okay?”

“Guti, I’ll call Iker, he can go with me. You look exhausted.”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s impolite to say that to a beautiful woman?” Guti demands, still face-down into a cushion.

“Last time I checked you were still an ugly guy so no, that doesn’t apply.” Raúl says, sitting down on Guti’s legs. He reaches out and rubs at Guti’s back between his shoulder blades, and Guti groans into the cushion.

“ _Fuck_ , that feels good. Just- keep that up and we can get me a coffee on the way over and I’ll be fine, I swear.”

Raúl fights against a sudden, unbidden heat that had sparked low in his gut with Guti’s moan and the way he’d relaxed against Raúl’s hand. He shakes his head slightly to clear it, carefully continuing to dig his fingers against Guti’s back, feeling the knots of tension there. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Guti says in an indignant tone that’s made somewhat ineffectual by the satisfied hum he makes when Raúl hits a particularly bad spot at the base of his neck. “Me and you, we’re the face of this thing. I have to be there so people know that. We’re together, don’t try to shake me off just ‘cause Iker’s got a degree.”

Raúl laughs, aggressively ignoring the buzzing at the back of his skull whenever Guti sighs in satisfaction. “I would never.”

They fall into a comfortable silence, Raúl shifting so that he has better access to Guti’s back and Guti occasionally murmuring little contented things as the tension slowly drains from the harsh set of his shoulders.

“Alright,” Raúl says finally, reluctant to break the haze of familiarity and intimacy that had descended, but bound the clock and his duty nonetheless. “If you’re really up for it, time to get dressed.”

 

 

And of course it doesn’t even matter in the end that Guti had practically dragged himself over half-dead: Raúl’s throat still goes dry when he sees him, elegant in his tailored dinner jacket, hiding his tattoos underneath crisp white cuffs but unable to resist the diamond stud glinting at his ear. The hollows under his eyes have receded somewhat and he’s brushed his hair and he looks- well, he looks gorgeous, to be quite honest. He smiles at Raúl, flashing white teeth. “Ready?”

Raúl resists the urge to stare. Nods.

“It’ll be fine, honestly you’re a professional smooth talker, I don’t know why you’re nervous about a dinner with a bunch of idiot investors,” Guti says reassuringly, misinterpreting Raúl’s twitching for nerves. Better that than he recognise it for what is actually was. Raúl knows exactly what he wants to do to Guti. To do with Guti. It sits at the back of his teeth. He swallows it.

“Alright,” he says. “Let’s go.”

 

 

The dinner isn’t bad. It isn’t bad at all. Good, actually. The food is delicious and the guests are actually interesting. Raúl has a time of it talking with the stock broker he’s sitting next to. Guti is on his other side charming some exec and while Raúl –if he’s being entirely honest- doesn’t quite like the way Guti’s conversation partner seems to be captivated by Guti’s lips, at one point he catches Guti’s eye and receives a wink in return.

Even with the reassurance, Raúl still takes a certain delight in laying a proprietary hand on Guti’s shoulder, and watching the exec’s expression sour slightly as Guti leans into the touch. It’s petty, because Guti is no more his than anyone’s, and anyways he’s almost positive that Guti is only playing along with Raúl’s obvious jealousy just to provoke a reaction from the suit he’s been chatting up. But he’ll take what he can get.

He wonders when he’d gotten exactly so...well, attached to Guti. He’s noticed his attraction, which, sure. Guti is a handsome man. But this- it was something entirely more.

 

 

The other thing that Raúl wonders is how he suddenly becomes the go-to accountant and financial advisor for Madrid’s criminal element. It seems as though half of the business he does these days comes from sources that ‘require some discretion, I hope your reputation for handling such matters runs true to course, Mr. González’. He thinks it has something to do with a deadly combination of Sergio’s outgoing personality and Iker’s management skills. One day Sergio is just overseeing the movement of goods, the next he’s best friends with suppliers for half the amphetamine rings in Europe, and is recommending Raúl for all their financial needs.

“Oh yeah,” Sergio says enthusiastically when Raúl asks where he’s getting all the customers from. “Iker’s been getting in touch with some people, mostly connections of our renters who operate outside of Madrid. They’re a pretty cool bunch of guys, but most of them can’t keep a budget to save their lives. Which it might, possibly. So I figured you might be able to help them out. Which is like, double-y good for us ‘cause we make cash off of that and also help them revitalise the drug trade which is, y’know, also good for us, because of _business._ ” He says the last word with a significant raising of his eyebrows.

Raúl takes a second to unpack Sergio’s statement. “You and Iker have been in talks with these people?”

“Well, more like I went out for drinks with Mesut and he told me that he thinks his contact back in Germany is about to fold and I was like, dude, I know a guy who could maybe help sort you out with that, and he was like, cool, and then I told Iker and Iker said something about working with him directly, ‘cause Mesut’s a cool guy y’know? I think he was going to talk to you about it today.”

“Hang on,” Raúl says, feeling lost. “Who’s Mesut?”

 

 

Mesut turns out to be the pipeline for about 95% of all the less-than-legal goods that travelled from Spain to Germany, although he neither bought nor sold anything himself. He merely brought the two halves together with uncanny talent for connecting just the right product to just the right consumer. He was one of the new friends that Sergio had made and that Iker had carefully filed away for the future, and his range means that with Mesut’s recommendation, almost every door in Spain opens, along with not an inconsiderable number in Germany and England. Before long Raúl’s list of clientele he’s advising below ground begins to stretch longer than those he’s advising in legal, government-approved enterprises. The monopoly he holds on the position of accountant-for-crooks means that sky-high fees start rolling in and stacking up, and by the end of the year Raúl no longer needs to operate the pyramid scheme, returning money to the final few investors with obfuscating explanations and apologies. The scam had been expensive to close but pyramids always ended up collapsing on themselves at some point or another, and in any case, Raúl thought, you had to spend money to make, and he was certainly making. He says a silent thank you and good bye to Luís, and closes another chapter of his enterprise.

 


	6. I.vi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Antagonists appear, deals are done, mistakes are made.

 

 

“What do you know about José Mourinho?”

Iker shrugs. “The guy who owns half the clubs and restaurants in Madrid? He’s rich and he’s full of snide comments. He’s probably dangerous. What else is there to know?”

“Not a lot more.” Raúl frowns. “That’s what worries me.” He clicks through a few more meaningless news articles that tell him absolutely nothing beyond the facts that José Mourinho is both rich and full of snide comments before closing his browser with a sigh. “His people have gotten in touch with me. Well, with Sergio. I was out at the time but they want to set up a consultation.”

Iker does a double-take. “ _José Mourinho?_ Wants to hire _you?_ ”

Raúl looks at him aggrievedly. “It’s not that unlikely. I’m becoming fairly well-known.”

“ _We’re_ becoming fairly well-known,” Guti shouts from his office, where he’s almost guaranteed to be playing either Solitaire or Minesweeper.

Raúl can’t suppress a fond smile. Iker grazes him with a pitying look but thankfully says nothing. Iker’s insubordination mostly manifests in the form of increasingly incredulous facial expressions which Raúl ignores. While he’s never explicitly said anything, Iker has made his opinions about Raúl and Guti’s relationship –or more accurately, lack of relationship- clear enough. Raúl would take vengeance but Iker only glares when interrogated about Sergio, and has remained seemingly oblivious to _Sergio’s_ painfully evident crush on _him_ , though whether his ignorance was wilful or not, Raúl still can’t tell. It doesn’t make any sense but then again, when did anything.

He’s setting up the standard presentation for the Mourinho meeting when he realises something- and on a sudden _oh, right_ sense of settling nerves in his stomach he takes out the spiel he usually gives about investment opportunities.

Guti flips through the printouts and raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything, just meets Raúl’s eye and nods. Raúl feels comfortingly validated, like he’s not just acting on his own paranoia.

He overhears Sergio and Iker talking about it later and is further reaffirmed. “So,” Sergio is saying, a little dryly, “we’re not robbing José Mourinho after all. Too bad.”

Iker laughs. “How disappointingly self-preservationist of us.”

“Might have been fun though,” Sergio muses. “You’re probably not going to get a better story than that.”

“Interesting in the way where we meddle in Mourinho’s financial affairs and then all end up being tracked down and quietly disposed of by hired killers, yes Sergio. Fun. Good story.”

 

 

Mourinho in the flesh is simultaneously more likable and more terrifying than he is in his news features, although no less indiscernible. Raúl finds himself being charmed several times throughout the initial small talk and has to shake himself mentally. 

They run over the standard procedure, Raúl explaining what information he’ll need and what he expects to have to do, and walking Mourinho through the example product that he’d fixed up for this particular customer.

Everything goes smoothly until the very end.

“I understand that you also offer services caring for your clients’ stocks, Mr. González,” Mourinho says in what would be a careless tone if Raúl believed for a second that Mourinho had ever been careless in his life, which he didn’t. “You have a reputation for producing outstanding returns but you haven’t mentioned this aspect of your work at all.”

 _Shit_ , Raúl thinks, _does he know something?_ Anyone else and it could be an innocent observation but Mourinho sets something on edge inside him, something tight and grinding somewhere around his back molars. It’s instinct. He forces himself to shrug. “Most of my clients don’t come close in comparison with the scale of your operation. I doubt that you have anyone but the very best already taking care of your affairs and I won’t waste your time trying to convince you that I’m better.” He meets Mourinho’s gaze steadily. “I doubt I can offer you anything in that quarter, unfortunately.”

Mourinho holds his gaze for a moment and then smiles, apparently satisfied. He turns back to the folder in front of him. “Very good. _Very_ good, Mr. González. I look forward to working with you.”

Raúl shakes his hand, and tries not to feel like he’s making a deal with the devil. Mourinho’s not _that_ alarming. Not quite.

When Mourinho contacts him again it’s with the usual thank-yous and expressions of satisfaction –Raúl’s never had a dissatisfied customer. It’s not bragging if it’s true, and he’s excellent at what he does- and Raúl feels a weight lifted off his shoulders. The work had been straightforward enough- almost too much so. Mourinho’s company was impeccably run. But there had been a lingering ill feeling over the whole affair that made him uneasy. He hadn’t realised just _how_ uneasy until just now when it was finally over.

At least, it’s over until a few hours later when he receives an e-mail from Mourinho asking him about availability for a meeting that week.

Raúl doesn’t know what it’s about and the e-mail is extraordinarily vague. He has Iker take a look at it but all he gets is a disconcerted furrowing of Iker’s brow.

“I’ve got nothing. And he seemed to be happy with the work you did for him?”

Raúl shrugs helplessly. “Yes. And he’s got no cause for false flattery; Mourinho’s not exactly known to beat around the bush. You’d think if he was displeased with the programme we drew up for him he’d just say so. And it was hardly complicated. This whole thing...this is something else.”

“Are you going to see him?”

“I’ve got no reason not to, do I?”

“It’s José Mourinho.” Iker says seriously. “Be careful.”

 

 

Guti doesn’t like it any more than Iker does, though unlike Iker he doesn’t restrict himself to concerned eyebrow manoeuvres, instead voicing his worries in no uncertain terms. Nonetheless when Raúl suggests he stay behind Guti pierces him with the most withering gaze known to man and expresses his doubts that Raúl could do _anything_ alone, much less negotiate unknown waters with José Mourinho of all people. Raúl is pleased and relieved. He doesn’t know what he’d do if Guti had actually taken the half-hearted out he’d been offered. Take Iker along, to be sure, but still-

He’s glad Guti will be there.

 

 

“I know what you do, Mr. González,” is the first thing that Mourinho says. They’ve been ushered into his office and are seated across from him. Mourinho’s desk is almost worryingly spare, entirely cleared save for an elegant silver pen holder and a blank notepad. “I know your operation is two-fold, and that you’re stealing money from your clients while at the same time providing the services you _do_ advertise, which _are_ exemplary, I might add. I wasn’t lying when I wrote to you my satisfaction with the work you did for me.”

Raúl has enough of an iron will not to startle at Mourinho’s words. He looks back at him coolly. “I don’t quite know what you’re accusing me of.” he says, confident that Guti beside him is just as much a blank.

Mourinho smiles and it’s not a smile of attack or aggression, but it sets Raúl’s hackles up nonetheless. “You said at our last meeting that you wouldn’t bother wasting my time. Don’t do it now. And I’m not accusing you of anything, Mr. González, rather congratulating you on your quite successful enterprise. You’ve managed to make a name for yourself in an impressively short amount of time, and better yet, you’ve caught my attention.”

 It’s not a boast. It’s a statement. Beside him Raúl can sense the tension humming off of Guti like a physical thing.

“The work you did for me was excellent. And you didn’t attempt to steal from me, which was a wise move. That wouldn’t have ended well for you.” Mourinho’s smile widens. His eyes are chips of ice. “You are a talented and prudent businessman, Mr. González.”

“Thank you.” Raúl says blandly.

“Which is why I’d like to hire you again, this time in a quieter capacity.”

Raúl doesn’t say anything but inclines his head to indicate that he’s still listening. Mourinho continues.

“I must admit, you first came to my attention not in above-ground circles. Like you, I engage in business alongside my public operations that might not be exactly smiled upon by the Spanish legal authorities. Usually my profits are handled in-house but recently I’ve had some, ah, personnel reshuffles.” Mourinho bears his teeth. There’s poison dripping off the words. Guti is digging his nails into his own thigh, hidden from Mourinho by the desk but Raúl can see it out of the corner of his eye, the tendons standing out on the back of his hand, spiralling black tattoos along his wrist starker than usual against skin that has gone milk-white. Above, Guti’s face remains expressionless, almost bored.

“As a consequence I’m in the market for below-board financial services. I’ve been told that you are the best and really, the only, man for the job. I have to say my own assessment tells me much the same.” He watches Raúl expectantly.

“If I might be blunt,” Raúl says, and receives an eyebrow from Mourinho that says _go on,_ “You’re asking me to launder money for you.”

Mourinho laughs. A short, dry sound. “Yes.”

Raúl glances over at Guti. Guti meets his eye, and shrugs, the tiniest of movements and Raúl reads him perfectly. He turns back to Mourinho. “Alright. Let me first explain my terms, and then we’ll get to business, shall we?”

**\--**

When they finally step back out onto the street Guti visibly relaxes. He’d been silent the entire meeting save for a few quiet murmurs to Raúl when his input had been needed. Raúl looks at him, worried. “You really didn’t like it in there, did you?”

Guti shakes his head tightly.

“Look,” Raúl says, tentatively putting a hand on Guti’s shoulder. “I don’t like Mourinho either. He thinks the world revolves around him, and he’s got the money and power to ensure that it actually might. But we’re still independent contractors. He hasn’t asked us to do anything out of the ordinary for what services we offer to less-than-reputable businesses, and if he does try to up the stakes we can always walk away, easy as that.”

Guti frowns. “I don’t know if it’d be ‘easy as that’, Raúl. I’ve heard- _stories_ about Mourinho. From people I know who’ve worked for him or still do. And the man’s not known for letting things go when he wants them.” He looks at Raúl with genuine consternation. “I don’t us getting into anything we can’t get out of, okay?”

Right, Guti hates the idea that he might be beholden to another person outside of his control. Raúl knows this. “Guti, it’ll be fine.” Raúl squeezes Guti’s shoulder in what he hopes is a reassuring manner. “If Mourinho tries anything I’ll deal with it. You won’t have to be involved at all.”

Guti frowns. “What? No, that’s really not-”

Raúl cuts him off. “Don’t worry about it, Chema. C’mon, it’s six o’clock and it’s a Friday. We’ve landed the biggest client of our illustrious careers, _twice,_ personality of said client aside. Let’s go out. I could use it.”

Guti sighs but doesn’t pursue his lost sentence. “Alright. But we’re putting it on the new credit card that Iker told us only to use for client lunches.”

Raúl grins at him. “Well, obviously.”

 

 

A few hours later two different bars separate them from the place where they’d started out and Raúl is well on his way to incoherency. The place they’re at now has a crowded dance floor and a giant disco ball spinning slowly from the ceiling. The lights are dim and flashing various colours and Guti is drinking something tinted a horrific shade of blue.

“Okay,” Raúl shouts in Guti’s ear, trying to make himself heard above the noise, “okay, I think I’ve figured it out.”

Guti looks at him questioningly from over the top of his glass.

“I’ve figured out why I’m so drunk right now.”

Guti raises an eyebrow. “Could it have something to do with the three bars we were at before coming here?”

“What?”

“We’ve been at three bars!” Guti yells again, but Raúl is already shaking his head.

“No, it’s not that. It’s because I didn’t eat lunch. I forgot to eat lunch and now I’m- there’s not. Not enough in my stomach to absorb. Alcohol.”

“I’m still going with the three bars theory.”

“Nah, it’s the lunch. The lack of lunch.” Raúl stumbles against Guti. “’m not falling down, I’m dancing.”

“You’re definitely falling down.” Guti hands Raúl his offensively blue drink. “Drink this, it’ll make you feel better.”

“Really?”

“No.”

Raúl downs the glass anyways, and Guti cheers. The drink tastes how Raúl imagines licking the sticky-sweet surface of a candy counter would be like, only drenched in vodka. It’s disgusting. Like being smashed over the head with a block of sugar wrapped in hatred.

“Fuck, that’s awful! Guti, why’re you drinking this?”

“Isn’t it terrible?” Guti shouts back happily. “I love it.”

 

 

They drift towards the back of the club, away from the incessant thrumming of the bass speakers and the wilder frenzy of dancing to where it’s relatively calmer. Guti fetches them more drinks and they settle in against the back wall, Raúl pressing up against Guti’s side. Guti allows the intrusion of his space, rearranging his arms to better accommodate Raúl along his side.

Raúl grins. “We are moving on up in the world, Chema.” He takes a sip of whatever it is that Guti’s brought him and is pleased to discover that it’s palatable. Guti knows his tastes. “Moving on up.”

Guti smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Guess we are.”

“We run a respected business consultancy with many important clients, we have offices with the best view in Madrid, we have an in-house lawyer-”

“Law _student._ ”

“Yes, alright, in-house law student, and our own personal enforcer-slash-receptionist. Who is very good at both his jobs.”

“He also makes a great omelette.”

“That he does.” Raúl looks at Guti and grins widely. “I’d say we were doing pretty well for ourselves.” He reaches out and flicks at a flop of blond hair that’s fallen into Guti’s eyes. “You need a haircut.”

“You think?”

“Yeah,” Raúl mumbles, leaning more heavily into Guti. Maybe they’re both too drunk. They’re _definitely_ both too drunk. Raúl thinks not for the first time that he probably should have tried to hold back on Guti, back when they’d first become friends. He probably should have extended his restraint to Guti, rather than letting Guti’s lack thereof bleed into him. But here they are, definitely both too drunk, hanging off of each other in some darkened club somewhere. Raúl doesn’t even know how they’d gotten here.

Guti sways to the beat, relaxed and loose, all long limbs and sparkling eyes. He looks beautiful under the lights, the angles of his body accented in shadows. Raúl loves him very suddenly, or maybe not so suddenly but in a way that’s been a long time coming. He might have always loved Guti and can only just now put a name to it.

He’s definitely too drunk. And Guti is beautiful and Raúl-

Raúl reaches up and smoothes his thumb over Guti’s cheek. He thinks back, to ages and ages ago, in a different club. _Perfect, wonderful, all that._

He kisses Guti. Softly, gently. He kisses into Guti the way he feels.

Guti makes a small noise in the back of his throat, letting his lips open under Raúl’s as if in surprise. One of Guti’s hands flutters against Raúl’s back, brushing his spine ever so slightly.

The ghost of contact sparks, sending shivers all across Raúl’s skin under his shirt. He pushes forward, closer into Guti’s space and Guti lets him, grabbing at his arm more firmly and turning Raúl kissing him into kissing Raúl back.

There are kisses and then there are _kisses,_ and this one is falling rapidly into the latter category. Teeth and heat and Raúl doesn’t know if he’d put his drink down or dropped it and he doesn’t particularly care. “ _Oh,”_ he says against Guti’s lips, “Guti-”

“I know. _I know._ ” Guti curls into Raúl as though trying to carve him open. His eyes are closed.

“Fuck, Guti- I want. I want you.” Raúl thinks he is babbling; he doesn’t know what he’s saying or doing, just that Guti’s skin feels hot under his hands and if they don’t get out of this place _now_ he’s going to end up on his knees right here and not care who sees them. Guti has always been good at eroding Raúl’s self-control, and here he is illuminated by the neon lights and breathing sweet liquor-soaked words against Raúl’s cheek, and Raúl has never wanted anyone so badly, so completely, like he wants Guti. He tugs at the waistband of Guti’s jeans, hooking his fingers into Guti’s belt. The metal buckle is burning hot.

Guti moans, low in the back of his throat. He reaches down for Raúl’s hand.

And stops.

And then Guti is pulling away slowly, untangling himself from Raúl’s arms, from their knees slotting against each other, their hands. His eyes are open and carefully blank. “No,” he says, stilted, stepping backward, “This isn’t what I want. I don’t think- I didn’t want to do this. ” He looks lost. “I’m not doing this. Not you, Raúl, please. _”_

“Guti,” Raúl says, confused at the abrupt change in the tension between them, feeling as though something has opened up inside his chest, some vacuum of a black hole slowly dragging him down. He’s confused and hurt, and there’s a terrible coldness of rejection crawling over his skin that makes him want to be alone, very alone – _not you, Raúl-_  but at the same time Guti sounds bewildered and upset, and Raúl hates that, he doesn’t want that, it’s the last thing he wants. He wants to fix it. He wants to be with Guti and stay there until that goes away. “Guti,” he says, trying to catch him again, reaching out a hand to touch him, to ground him.

Guti snatches at Raúl’s wrist before he can make contact and grips it with iron fingers. “ _Don’t.”_ There something frightened in his eyes, like an animal caught in a trap despite Raúl being the one with his wrist locked in a death grip, the skin stretched white over Guti’s knuckles as though about to tear like tissue paper over his skeletal hand.

“Guti,” Raúl tries again, “I’m sorry, I didn’t- what I-”

But Guti is shaking his head, something unreadable marring his expression. “Please, Raúl,” he says, “you aren’t...please don’t.”

“I’m sorry.” Raúl repeats, miserably, helplessly. “I won’t.” The heat between them has rushed out of some invisible door that has been opened to the cold, and Raúl doesn’t know why or how.

Guti seems to deflate, dropping Raúl’s wrist and sagging into himself, spine bent. There are hollows under his eyes, Raúl notices. They’ve been there for weeks, maybe months. He’s seen them before, but not until now did he think there might be a cause other than simple tiredness.

“Go home, Raúl.” Guti tells him dully. His face is a waxen mask. “Just- go home.”

And Guti turns and walks away, leaving Raúl alone amidst the noise and the lights.

 

 


	7. II.i

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part I of this story was told from Raul's perspective. Part II, which begins with this chapter, will be told from various characters' points of view. (The POV switches are clear, no trickery!)

 

_TWO YEARS LATER_

 

 

“Christ, I can’t believe this.”

Iker looks up from his computer. “What?”

“Fernando.” Sergio scowls. “He knows San Cristóbal is our market, and still his people keep being spotted around there.”

“What’re they selling?”

Sergio shrugs. “Probably weed, mostly. But Raúl still won’t like it.”

“No,” Iker says thoughtfully, “he won’t.” He fixes Sergio with a piercing stare. “You’ll have to talk to Fernando. Again. And Sergio. If Raúl asks you-”

“I can do my job, Iker,” Sergio cuts him off sharply. “Just because Fernando’s my friend doesn’t mean I can’t do my job.”

“I’m not saying that,” Iker says placating. “I’m only bringing it up because I want you to keep it in mind.”

Sergio deflates slightly. He sighs and scrubs a hand over his forehead. “I just wish Fernando would stop fucking about with us, y’know?”

Iker laughs humourlessly. “He’s not exactly going to roll over and do what Raúl tells him, is he? He’s a businessman; he does what he has to. If there wasn’t this conflict of interest it’d be all so normal.”

“Ha, ‘conflict of interest’, nice way of putting it.” Sergio says morosely.

“That’s what you get when you fraternise with the enemy.”

“Fraternise- I’ve known him since we were like, twelve! I didn’t know he was going to _become_ the enemy!”

Iker is laughing. “No need to get so defensive, Sese, I’m only saying you’ve brought this upon yourself.”

“Oh my god,” Sergio says, raising his hands in exaggerated exasperation, “I can’t believe-” he takes a swipe at Iker who dodges, and Sergio hits a stack of letters instead, sending them flying off Iker’s desk.

“Sergio!”

“Oops.”

Iker glares, struggling to suppress his grin. . “Pick them up.”

Sergio all but sticks out his tongue. “Make me.”

“Fine, c’mere, I’m gonna-” Iker jumps up and makes a dive for Sergio. Sergio scoots back in his chair but the office is too small for him to really go anywhere and Iker manages to grab at him and jab his side a couple of times.

“Ow, Iker!” Sergio tries to wriggle away but Iker has him in a headlock now. “Ow- okay I’ll pick up the letters, stop poking me, ouch!”

“I didn’t realise we were running a playgroup,” Guti drawls, appearing in the doorway with a look of amusement on his face. “Aren’t you supposed to be working on the quarterly payments for the supply staff?”

Iker shrugs, unabashedly leaving Sergio still trapped in the crook of his arm. “I’m nearly finished.”

“Guti! Help, he’s strangling me,” Sergio wails, waving his arms blindly.

Guti snickers. “Have fun with that, kids. Oh, and Raúl says we don’t have to come in on Friday after all. Sergio, you still wanna do lunch?”

Iker takes pity and releases Sergio, who makes a show of aggrievedly rubbing his neck. “Yeah, I’m still down. Can you pick me up?”

“Of course.” Guti throws them a mock salute and moves on to whatever task he has to attend to next. Guti’s schedule is convoluted and mysterious to all but himself, but as far as Iker and Sergio can decipher it seems to work.

“Anyways,” Iker says, dropping back into his chair, “Pick up this shit you knocked over. And tell me what you’re going to do about Fernando.”

 

\--

 

Guti appraises Sergio over the top of his glass. “You know,” he says, “since it’s now been about two years that I’ve been watching you idiots dance around each other, you should probably end this little soap opera and just tell Iker you’re in love with him already.”

Sergio nearly chokes on his complicated-looking sandwich. “ _Guti._ ”

“ _Sergio._ We’ve talked about this, seriously, you’re not exactly subtle and it’s not exactly rocket science to figure out that Iker thinks the world of you. Just do something already. It’s painful for me to watch.”

“It’s not gonna happen.” Sergio says firmly, ears still red. “Iker’s my friend and that’s the end of that.”

It’s all Guti can do not to fling his arms in the air in exasperation. “Oh, come _on_ , when was the last time you brought Iker lunch?”

“Tuesday.”

“And did you lavish him with kisses and affection when you presented him with his lunch?”

“Yes,” Sergio admits.

“And what happened the last time _I_ tried to embrace our darling Ikercio in my loving arms and tell him how wonderful he is?”

Sergio thinks back to the previous week when Iker had effectively dealt with some low-level dissent from within the ranks of their dealer network and Guti had expressed his appreciation by attempting to pick him up and spin him around, a gesture that had not exactly been welcomed by Iker.

“He smacked you with the newspaper,” Sergio says.

“Yes, he smacked me with the newspaper. But I don’t see you getting physically assaulted whenever you slobber all over him.”

“Okay,” Sergio says, jabbing a finger at Guti, “if it’s so easy then why haven’t you and Raúl sorted out _your_ shit? Because I think anyone who’s ever interacted with you guys for more than a minute can tell that he’s stupid in love with you, and you might have this whole aloof casual affection thing going on but you can’t fool _me,_ I see you.”

Guti takes a moment both to be impressed by Sergio’s excellent use of the word _aloof_ and to formulate his response.  There’s no real point in denying anything because he’s fairly sure he’s drunkenly complained about Raúl to Sergio before, probably on more than one occasion, and said complaining had likely tread far from professional gripes into ‘he’s so handsome and impressive and I don’t know what to do about it’ territory. “It’s complicated,” he settles on, finally. A time-honoured noncommittal reply.

Sergio rolls his eyes. “ _Complicated._ You’ve been saying that for actual _years_ now. Ever think the _only_ complicated thing might be that both of you seem to be obsessed with _how_ complicated it is?”

It’s almost wisdom. Sergio spouting wisdom only means trouble. So Guti decides to strategically ignore him.

“Well,” he says instead, “I know _I’m_ content to live my life happily alone. I don’t know about you.”

“Alone?” Sergio scoffs. “You’ve had a string of boyfriends and girlfriends longer than my dick. You’re always looking for someone.”

Guti shrugs. “Yeah but like, for sex. I don’t exactly advertise myself as a settling down kind of person.” He pauses. “And please note how I refrained from going for the obvious small dick joke, there.”

“I noticed, and I’m actually really flattered. You do love me after all.”

“Well,” Guti says, heartfelt, “what are friends for?”

 

\--

 

It’s nearly evening on the Friday when Sergio makes his way over to Fernando’s apartment. He figures that Fernando will be home right after work. Fernando might have the dyed-blonde hair and tight jeans of a serial partier, but for the most part he was fairly conservative with how often he went out, and tended to use Fridays to recharge from the week rather to let loose.

Sure enough, he opens the door on the second knock, his face breaking into a smile. “Sergio! Hi!”

Sergio experiences a brief moment of conflict, because he had shown up unannounced intending to go for serious right from the get-go but, oh, what the hell, it’s not like he’s on a time schedule. Not really. So he doesn’t stop the instinctive answering grin from spreading across his face. “Hey, Nando.”

Fernando lets him in and they walk to the kitchen, Fernando chattering all the way about something or other. Sergio is listening, he really is, because hey, he’s actually a good friend and pays attention. He’s just a bit distracted at the moment.

Distracted by the fact that he’s here to get rid of Fernando. In whatever way he deems appropriate.

He doesn’t actually think that Raúl wants him to kill Fernando. Raúl knows that they’re friends and it’s not as if Fernando is the biggest fish in the sea trying to snap at Raúl’s toes. He’s just an annoyance. An annoyance who can’t take a hint.

So while Raúl wouldn’t exactly reprimand Sergio if he ended up having to go for the extreme measure, he’s likely not expecting it. Or particularly wanting it, necessary or not. Despite his reputation, Raúl tended to prefer that his work be carried out with a minimum of bloodshed, thank you very much.

Which is a relief because Sergio might be loyal and all, but he really, _really_ doesn’t want to have to kill Nando and throw his body in the sewer. Or whatever it was that people did with dead bodies these days.

He’ll just get Nando to leave Madrid. That would be fine. And hopefully not to somewhere too far away either, because Sergio would probably miss his best Pro-Evo competition.

He’s about to start in with the formalities when Fernando opens the fridge and throws a beer at him shouting “Catch!” and Sergio figures fuck it; it’s officially the weekend and he might as well take his time.

 

\--

 

The meeting has been dragging on for nearly an hour past its planned end when Guti nudges Raúl imperceptibly and slides his notepad over an inch. Raúl glances down. _When are we going to buy out these assholes?_ Guti has scribbled in his cramped, sloping hand. _100% shareholders have meetings in lounge slippers with strawberry daiquiris. Pls consider._

Raúl bites the inside of his lip to keep his grin from curling out. He generally winds up stifling a laugh quite frequently during shareholder meetings, Guti to blame. Technically Guti doesn’t have to come, because on the rare occasions that input is needed Raúl does the overwhelming majority of the talking, and he surely wouldn’t have blamed Guti for passing. Shareholder meetings were as a rule uniformly uneventful. But Guti always came along. Raúl appreciated it. Both the companionship and the occasional relief from tedium were invaluable.

 

 

When they finally spill out of the conference room Guti stretches his arms with an exaggerated relieved exhale. “ _God._ I though I was going to die in there.”

“Don’t be rude. At least not until we’re out of the building. I can’t take you anywhere, honestly.”

Guti rolls his eyes and punches Raúl lightly on the shoulder. He’s been looking good, Raúl notes. A lot better than he had last spring, when he’d resembled more of a wax figure of himself than an actual living, breathing person. Raúl had broken their usual rule of silence several times, asking Guti again and again what was happening, but Guti had been tight-lipped about it, insisting that he was fine even as Raúl had watched helplessly as his friend had fallen farther and farther down some unknown chasm.

But he looks good, he looks healthy, much more like the Guti that Raúl had first met years ago. Guti smiles and slings his arm around Raúl, tugging him in and Raúl relaxes into the half-embrace, happy. It’s a little bit embarrassing just how much he treasures these small moments, especially because it isn’t as if they’re terribly rare. Sure, there had been a few worryingly icy weeks between them after that calamitous night at the club, a disaster which Raúl thinks about far too often for all the time that has passed since then. But at the end of it all they were friends. Guti is Raúl’s best friend and Raúl is Guti’s.

It’s all years in the past in any case, and Guti is quick to wrap his arms around Raúl or fall asleep on him while he’s filing endless taxes on all their holdings (Raúl takes especial delight in his meticulously perfect tax record, every cent paid in full on the property he uses to distribute 90% of Madrid’s illegal substances). It’s really Raúl who is still hung up on the whole thing, leaning into Guti’s touch whenever it was offered like a freezing man at a fire. He should be over it. He should be moved on. He should be a lot of things.

“Hey,” Guti asks as Raúl attempts to flag down a cab, “Can I bring over some laundry? My machine is broken. Again.”

“Really? This is what, the fourth time it’s broken? Guti, maybe it’s time you just give it up as a bad job and buy a new washing machine.”

“I know, I know. Can I bring over the laundry or not?”

“Obviously. I can’t have you wandering around in unwashed clothes, think of the public image.” Raúl grins. “And because you’re a jackal you’ll want dinner as well, right?”

Guti laughs. “It _is_ the end of the work day and I never pass up an opportunity to mooch off of you. What are we having?”

 

\--

 

It’s times like these, Guti thinks as he shoves the heap of clothes into the washing machine, that he remembers how they used to be. Before everything had really started taking off. When they were just people instead of a business.

It isn’t even that Raúl has changed in the way he interacts with Guti. Or with Iker and Sergio, for that matter. From time to time Raúl will gather his lieutenants for periodical reviews, which inevitably deteriorate into ordering take-out to Guti’s apartment and watching Sergio ply Iker with alcohol until he starts complaining about the state of the European Parliament. And Raúl is the same as he’s ever been in their company, laughing and egging on whatever ill-advised impromptu competition sprang up, drinking or balancing salt shakers or whatever.

And it goes beyond pure professionalism: Raúl has always been good in a suit, polished cufflinks and smiles. But Guti can sense it. He’s colder now, somehow. Icier around the edges with clients and with the networks of suppliers and dealers that they’ve become interwoven with.

It’s a way of doing business, Guti supposes. Raúl is more than a talented kid in a dingy office with a knack for embroidering cash trails. He’s an institution in the Madrid under-elements. There were fingers, and there were pies, and quite a lot of those fingers were attached to people who in some way answered to Raúl González.

And Raúl González is a man to be reckoned with.

But Guti sometimes sees Raúl behind his desk (dark polished wood with a silver pen tray. Imposing. Immovable.) with an unfathomable expression on his face, and he misses the piece of plywood junk that Raúl had used to scribble absently on during phone calls, all scattered over with mints taken in handfuls from fancy restaurants.

Guti doesn’t miss being poor. He doesn’t miss being nobody. He’s been photographed for Fortune Magazine and he can get Real Madrid tickets whenever he wants.

He only hopes he doesn’t ever lose the Raúl he knows to the Raúl that everyone knows.

Because it’s not that he doesn’t like having his own place, but Raúl’s apartment has always felt far more like home than it had any right to. Uncomfortably, that hasn’t changed despite Raúl moving from his run-down student flat to a decidedly more upscale penthouse, forcing Guti to concede (privately) that it probably wasn’t the apartment itself he was after.

Given a little bit more time and some alcohol, he might even admit that he hasn’t exactly been actively seeking a solution to his laundry problem, either. Nothing like an occasional washer malfunction to provide a good excuse for spending the evening watching Raúl try to cook.

 

\--

 

Raúl is fairly sure that he’s proficient enough in the kitchen by this point that it’s not completely obvious that he has no idea what he’s doing.

Guti might not be buying it yet. He’s unsure. But Guti at least has never complained (too much) about the scientific experiments that Raúl dishes out. And in any case, Guti doesn’t _have_ to test drive Raúl’s home cooking once or twice a week. He can go home whenever he likes. Not that Raúl isn’t glad to have him. He is. And may Guti’s washing machine never be replaced.

He’s managed a curry and Guti seems to be eating it without suffering some sort of horrific spice-related death, so Raúl counts it a success. They eat in companionable silence, settling into the white noise of the washing machine in the background as it hums away at Guti’s clothes.

They do the dishes side-by-side, Guti washing and Raúl drying, before drifting to the living room in unspoken agreement. Raúl likes their usual selection of restaurants that they tend to frequent on Fridays, but sometimes he has to admit to himself that even elaborate professionally prepared food loses an edge to being able to go straight from the table to the couch in sweatpants and bare feet, to watch a bad sci-fi film or a grainy football match.

“Oh,” Guti says, dropping to the sofa while Raúl fishes the remote out of the television cabinet, “I meant to tell you. Iker emailed me; apparently some magazine wants an interview with you.”

“No,” Raúl says firmly.

“Eh, too late because Iker also told me he’s already accepted on your behalf. Wear something nice on Tuesday, there’ll be a reporter in.”

Raúl mutters something rude under his breath. “I’m going to fire Iker. This is insubordination of the worst variety.”

“It’s just an interview. No such thing as bad press.”

“Nothing good has ever come of the Spanish media,” Raúl says darkly.

Guti considers. “Oh, I don’t know. There was that _great_ photo shoot you did with all the different chairs...”

“Oh _god,”_ Raúl groans, “No. Not the chair photo shoot. I told you to never mention the chair photo shoot ever again. I’m your boss, please respect my orders.”

“I kinda liked the chair photo shoot,” Guti says innocently. Raúl glares. “Hey, I had to do it, too.”

“ _You_ only had one embarrassing photo published. I had about five.” He pauses. “Although actually, after we went through that terrible ordeal and the interview with it, was when you quit bartending for good, right? So that was a positive. Although obviously unintended by the media and therefore, not proof that it’s good for anything.”

“Well,” says Guti, “It just wouldn’t have been proper for a partner of one of ‘Madrid’s hottest young start-ups’ to be seen moonlighting in a minimum wage job. No one would have believed the economy was recovering if I’d stayed there. Quitting was my duty to the Spanish people and their collective morale.”

He rolls onto his back, head hanging over the edge of the sofa, and grins at Raúl lazily from upside down. “I’m a patriot, Raúl,” he says, drawing out the syllables. “Always with the best interests of our nation at heart.”

Were Raúl less practiced at hiding his attraction to Guti, he might have needed a moment to collect himself. But having had several years to perfect the art of remaining unruffled when Guti looked at him like that, his eyes gleaming and the slender lines of his throat bared against the dark green of Raúl’s sofa, he only grins back, shoving the quickening of his heartbeat to the back of his mind, buried under layers of reminders that Guti didn’t want him. At least, not in the same way that Raúl wanted Guti.

But he can be content, Raúl thinks as he tosses Guti the remote and settles down on the couch next to him, giving Guti a shove until he sits right-side-up again. What would have been different, really, if Guti hadn’t walked away that night, ages and ages ago? More likely than not they would still be here. He leans in closer against Guti’s side, just to prove it to himself.

He can be content.

 


	8. II.ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of Fernando in this chapter! Speaking of, everyone's seen [his brilliant goal](https://streamable.com/ugfbq) from the weekend, right? Right. #that2009feel

 

The phone in receptions rings and Iker jumps slightly. He had been glazing over waiting for a file transfer to finish (they really needed to upgrade their internet provider, the wait times were getting ridiculous) and staring out his door at the plant on Sergio’s desk. He blinks back into focus as Sergio reaches over and picks up.

Iker watches Sergio’s expression snap out of absent laziness into sudden cautious attention, and knows immediately who it is on the other end of the line. Or at least, whose personal assistant is on the other end of the line.

When Sergio puts down the phone, he looks over and meets Iker’s eye.

“What did he want?”

Sergio frowns. “I’m not entirely sure. He wanted to speak to Raúl. Wasn’t scheduling a meeting or anything. I put him through but I’ve got no idea.”

“It’s...probably nothing good,” Iker says glumly. Sergio doesn’t contradict him. José Mourinho was never exactly anything that could be categorised as good news.

 

 

They don’t have to wait very long to find out. Roughly forty-five minutes after Sergio had put down the phone, Raúl sticks his head out his door.

“Iker?”

“Mhm,” Iker replies, not really paying attention. He’s got two Excel docs open and his desk is covered in Post-It notes.

“Can you come over here for a sec?”

“Yeah, just...gimme a minute...” he hates data entry. Especially since Guti’s records are always filed according to an arcane organisational system that only he understands, and he refuses to standardise for the sake of Iker’s sanity.

 “Since Iker’s preoccupied, _I’ll_ come in his stead,” Sergio says magnanimously, rising from behind his desk and meandering over to Raúl. “What’s up? Is it to do with whatever Mourinho’s people wanted?”

That gets Iker’s attention. He sets aside his pen and hits ctrl-s on his spreadsheets. “Mourinho?”

“Oh, _now_ he gets up,” Raúl says dryly as Iker finally steps out of his office. “Won’t lift a finger when his boss asks but mention José Mourinho and he’s up like a shot.”

Iker waves a hand at him. “What, do _you_ want to log all the data from last quarter? It’s consuming work. Especially reading Guti’s handwriting on the manifests.” He looks around. “Where did he go, anyways?”

“Picking up lunch,” Sergio supplies. “You looked pretty busy so when he left I just told him the falafel place for you, I know you liked it last time.” He furrows his brow. “I hope that’s okay.”

Iker is momentarily struck by just how well Sergio knows him. He would definitely have both snapped at Guti for interrupting him _and_ asked for falafel. He gives Sergio a smile. “Falafel is good. Thanks, Sese.”

Sergio beams and Iker feels his ears going red. Sometimes it seems almost unfair how easy it is to make Sergio happy. Like maybe he should have to work at it a bit harder.

“If you two are quite done admiring each other,” Raúl says, amused, “I actually did have a reason for uprooting you from your no doubt vital work.”

“Oh, I wasn’t doing anything,” Sergio tells him cheerfully.

“Good to know.” Raúl steps aside to let Sergio and Iker file into his office. Iker takes the couch.

Sergio leans against the window. “Hey, if this is like, important, shouldn’t we wait for Guti?”

“I can catch him up when he comes back. This mostly has to do with Iker’s work, and I need his opinion.”

Then it was something big, Iker notes. Raúl rarely issued instructions without Guti somehow being involved, even if he ended up giving no input. For him to need to talk immediately without waiting for his second-in-command carried some weight.

At that moment, however, the main door clicked open and there was movement from the reception area.

“Speak of the devil,” Raúl says, looking pleased.

“The devil?” Guti calls, “Don’t give me that much credit.” He appears in the doorway, holding a large paper bag. “I’m a minor demon at most.”

“You’re selling yourself short.”

Guti sets the bag down on Raúl’s desk and begins pulling out paper-wrapped sandwiches. “What am I interrupting? Here Sergio, the horrible combination you requested.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my sandwich tastes.” Sergio objects, at the same time that Raúl says, “Mourinho has been in contact.”

Guti raises an eyebrow. “I don’t know which one of those statements I dislike more.”

It’s been several months since they’ve last done any work for Mourinho, although Raúl is still officially employed as his development consultant. Iker knows that he’s in Mourinho’s books as well, as legal counsel. It’s not a situation that he’s particularly pleased to be in. In his opinion, it’s only a matter of time before something that Mourinho is sitting on explodes. There would be a lot of red ink thrown about when that day arrived, and Iker doesn’t exactly want any of it ending up on his name.

“We’re not doing another job for him, are we?” he asks, probing. If it were up to Iker, he would let their association with Mourinho slide gently into the past. And if Mourinho is now looking for them to do something outside of the usual job description of setting up shell companies and chasing down exceptions in Spanish gambling law to suit the needs of his clubs, Iker doesn’t particularly care for how tangled up they might get.

But Raúl is shaking his head. “No. On the contrary, he wanted to let me know that he’s leaving.”

Iker blinks. “Leaving?”

“Leaving Madrid. For London. He wants a meeting to finalise our dealings and discuss what to do with his properties here but...yeah. He’ll be gone before the end of the quarter.”

“This is good, right?” Sergio ventures.

Raúl frowns. “I want to know what he’s doing first before we start celebrating. I want to know if he’s planning on staying in London or not.”

“And if he is planning to stay?” Guti asks, shifting on his feet as though preparing for a fight.

Raúl rolls a pen under his fingers thoughtfully. “If he’s staying in England –and if we could figure out what he’s doing there, because I still don’t trust him having our names in his records being in any way connected to his dealings- then Iker, I’d want you to start cutting us loose from what’s left of his operation here in Madrid. And I’d want you to leave his employ as well.”

Iker nods. “I agree. If Mourinho is out of the country for the foreseeable future, it’s the best time for us to step back. There might not be any concrete evidence that he’s engaged in anything worse than smuggling and illegal gambling but it’s still high time we disassociate from him and this is as good a chance as any we might get.” There’s a prickling at the back of his neck, but he can’t quite tell if it’s any sort of forewarning in particular or just the general distrust he feels whenever the topic of José Mourinho is broached.

“I want to know what he’s up to,” Raúl says, almost to himself. “I dislike not knowing whether London is a passing idea or something he’s going to invest in long-term. He said he was selling his property here, but it’s still all so quick. I don’t know what to make of it.”

“I might have an idea,” Sergio says slowly, thoughtfully folding up the wax paper from his sandwich into a square and flattening it beneath his palm. “You, um, might not like it.”

Raúl looks at Sergio. Sergio grins, and throws the paper square Frisbee-style into Raúl’s rubbish bin. “But then again, you don’t like most of my ideas. Even though they usually end up being amazing, so.”

“I want it on record that Sergio’s ideas do _not_ usually end up being amazing,” says Iker from the couch.

“Noted.” Raúl says. “Continue.”

“Okay, so,” Sergio begins, pulling his phone out of his pocket, “you remember my friend Fernando, right?”

 

\--

 

As it happens, Raúl doesn’t even end up being the primary objector to Sergio’s idea. That coveted title is claimed by Fernando himself.

“Ohh no,” he says firmly when Sergio rings him up. “Raúl has me uproot my whole operation in Madrid, I have to leave the whole damn country, and now you want me to _inform_ for him? What planet are you _living_ on?!”

“Okay for one, no one told you leave Spain. You honestly could have just gone to like, any other city. And two, your ‘whole operation’? _Tio,_ you had a group of drop-outs selling weed. It wasn’t exactly like we toppled an empire or anything.”

Fernando sniffs. “As if. You kick me out of Madrid, you might as well kick me out of Spain. It was England or nothing. And also, it wasn’t just a group of drop-outs selling weed, I also did good business in knock-off football kits. So excuse you.”

“Wait, you had a knock-off jersey business? I genuinely did not know that,” Sergio says, interested.

“Yeah, they sold pretty well, too. I had two carts outside the Calderon. Custom web domain and everything, too.”

“Hey, nice job.”

“Thanks. I’m still not going to help out Raúl. So byyye-”

“ _Nando_ , please? Think of it as a favour for me.” Sergio isn’t above begging when he needs to. “Pleasepleaseplease. Mourinho’s going to be there in a few weeks and even after that who knows how long it’ll take for anything to happen. And you don’t even have to be like, proactive about it. Just if you _happen_ to hear anything...”

“Oh, sure. If I ‘happen to hear anything’, my ass. You want me to go sniffing out anything I can about what Mourinho’s up to. You realise that I’m trying to establish myself as a trustworthy independent operator up here? Poking under rocks looking for José Mourinho barely two months after showing up out of the blue isn’t exactly the best way of going about that.”

“Just if you happen to hear anything,” Sergio repeats, wheedling. He can sense Fernando starting to crack. For all his talk, Nando has always been a softie. “Do I need to send you photos of my best sad face?”

“You already use up enough of my data plan sending selfies, thanks.” Fernando says. He pauses, and then groans. “U _gh,_ _fine._ If, and that’s just an _if_ , I hear anything about what Mourinho’s doing in London, I will pass it on to you. To you! Not to Raúl! I’m not working for Raúl!”

“You’re the best, Nando!” Sergio sings joyfully. “Expect many selfies shortly so I can express just how amazing I think you are. Never has there been a better friend, and sweeter companion, a-”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Fernando cuts him off, but Sergio can hear the grin in his voice. “Now for god’s sake let me hang up before I lose _all_ of my pride.”

 

 

A few months later Sergio is just stepping through his door when his phone buzzes with a text message from Fernando. _Call me._

Sergio flops down onto his couch and kicks his shoes off, sending them flying across the room to hit the wall. He imagines Iker’s disapproving look. _That’s going to leave a mark._ Sergio sticks his tongue out at imaginary Iker and dials Fernando’s number.

When he picks up, Fernando foregoes the standard greeting. “Okay, first I wanna say that I’m still not happy about being run out of Madrid on a rail-“

Sergio interrupts with a roll of his eyes that he trusts Fernando can sense even if he can’t see the expression. “Yup, yup, we got it. You’re highly resentful of doing favours for someone who’s ruined your whole life, your business, your prospects. I’ll send flowers.”

“...well actually,” Fernando says, reluctantly, “I was _going_ to say; I’m still not happy about being run out of Madrid _but_...it’s actually not too bad here.”

“Hah!” Sergio exclaims triumphantly.

“I only said it wasn’t too bad! That’s not a victory!”

“Oh, Nando baby, you’re going to have to try that on someone who doesn’t know you as well as I do,” Sergio crows. “What happened? Have you already made a million? Did you- oh my god, are you shacking up with someone?”

“I refuse to say anything more on the matter,” Fernando says primly. “England in general is not terrible, Liverpool is nice. Business is better.”

“I’m seriously losing it over here.” Sergio rolls over horizontally on the couch and kicks his legs in the air gleefully. “Tell me everything. He or she? In the game or a gentle innocent? Hot or rich? Or _both?_ ”

“I actually had something important to tell you, so if you’re quite done with your pointless speculating...?”

“Naaando. You’re no fun.” Sergio sighs. “Alright, whatcha got for me?”

Fernando says, somewhat cautiously, “It might be nothing. Especially because A, I’m not super established here yet and so I don’t get all the information, and B, when you asked me to keep tabs on Mourinho for you, had you ever even looked at a map of England before? Liverpool’s like, far from London. But okay.”

“Yeah, yeah. But anything’s good to know.”

“I’m getting to it. There’ve been a couple words. Floating up north, like. Apparently Mourinho’s been quick to set himself up as the biggest act in London, clearing out smaller clubs and stuff. Like he’s been going around buying everything up, sorta monopoly-style. And if it’s big enough news in London that people in Liverpool are talking about it, then it’s gotta be a serious power play.”

Sergio frowns. “Wouldn’t something like that be in the news anyways? Usually business news reports when one owner starts taking over the market.”

“Nah, it’s not like that. Most of the establishments Mourinho is buying up do a bit of dirty work on the side. Illegal prostitution, drug distribution, that kinda thing. And he’s been working on that side of the law so the papers that are changing hands are mostly below board. Or something like that, I don’t really get the specifics and also, you should be impressed that I’ve learned enough English to even be able to tell you _that.”_

“I am impressed,” Sergio tells him absently, turning over the news in his mind. “You’re very smart and beautiful.”

“I know.” Fernando hesitates. “Look...I’ve been thinking it might be a good idea for me to go to London, just for a bit. Collect some contacts, see if I can make something out of Mourinho stirring the pot. And -and mind that this would be a personal favour for _you_ \- but I wouldn’t mind trying to wriggle in close to Mourinho. Try to figure out what exactly he’s doing.”

“ _Fernando.”_

“Absolutely _only_ because you’re my best friend, and _only_ because of that. I swear to god if you start spreading rumours that I’m doing any of this for Raúl, I _will_ fly back to Madrid just to give you a kicking. This is _my_ business move.”

“Fernando,” Sergio says fervently, “If it were possible to hug someone through a phone line, I would be doing it right now. You have no idea.”

Fernando sighs. “It’s looking like I’ll be over here a while so. I might as well branch out, y’know?”

“Exactly!” Sergio enthuses. “You’re basically doing yourself a favour and just like, keeping your best buddy Sergio up to date with what you’re doing.” He pauses. “Hang on, one thing. Won’t the pretty young thing you’ve got in Liverpool have something to say about you running off to London?”

“I didn’t even say I _had_ anyone, you’re the one who said that,” Fernando complains. “...but no, he’ll be okay. I hope.”

“Ohhh Nando,” Sergio says smugly. “You should know by now that it’s _impossible_ to keep anything hidden from me. Give him a kiss from me, yes?”

Fernando hangs up on him. Sergio doesn’t mind; more likely than not Nando was going to call back in about three minutes to deliver a retort he’d thought of.

 

\--

 

“So he’s building a monopoly?”

Sergio nods. “According to what Fernando’s heard. But he’ll have better intel on that soon, ‘cause he’s moving down to London for a bit.”

Raúl considers. “And Torres is reliable?” Sergio opens his mouth with an indignant expression and Raúl quickly throws up his hands in surrender before the impassioned defence of Fernando Torres’ character can get underway. “Okay! Okay, I believe it. Sorry.” He doesn’t have to turn around and look to know that Guti, standing behind him, is probably smirking slightly. The question of Fernando never ceased to amuse him, and he seemed to take particular enjoyment out of Raúl constantly capitulating to Sergio’s far more esteemed opinion of his friend.

In any case, with Fernando spreading his wings overseas where Raúl didn’t have any sort of stake, it was probably a good idea to try and establish some sort of friendly relations.

Iker chooses that time to speak. “He’s been moving quick, but nothing Mourinho’s done so far is particularly worrisome for us. It does seem as though he’s settling in for good. Torres will be helpful, but I don’t see a reason to distrust Mourinho. Asides from the obvious, I mean.”

Raúl nods. “He’s not exactly acting out of the realm of what we could have expected. London’s got nothing to do with us. Let Mourinho become king of the place, for all I care. He’s out of Madrid and that’s what I like. Iker...?”

“Yes. Right. I’ve been working on it. Slowly is better, because if you try to cut all ties immediately Mourinho will get suspicious that we’re trying to pull something over him.”

“We’re not, though,” Sergio objects.

Iker shrugs. “I mean, it’s what I would think if he suddenly cut all communication with us. Better to play it safe. We don’t want him going on a needless offensive. So I’ve been thinking; step back from his people still in the city. And then close up our account with him. Then it’ll just be me in his records, and by the year’s end that will just be another legal consultation that took place in the past and doesn’t mean anything.”

“Good. If you’ve got it covered, I’ll follow your lead.” Raúl resists the urge to rub at his eyes. He’s sick and tired of the entire Mourinho affair. “I’ll just be glad when we’re done with Mourinho. Not that he wasn’t a lucrative client, but far too many skeletons in that closet for comfort.”

 

 

Sergio and Iker head out not long afterwards to get dinner. The invitation is there for Raúl and Guti to join them but when Guti declines on basis of leftover Chinese food soon to go bad in his refrigerator, Raúl follows suit and leaves the two of them to themselves, as he suspects that in the absence of Guti he would be left feeling himself a third wheel.

Guti snickers as the door swings shut behind them. “Yeah, never fun being stuck in the middle of those two. It’d be better if they just up and admitted they’re dead lost in each others’ eyes but nooo, it’s gotta be denial, denial, denial.”

Raúl wags a reprimanding finger. “Don’t gossip about our co-workers, Guti.”

“Co-workers? Yeah, right. Maybe if they did any work, instead of distracting each other all day long...”

“In Iker’s defence, he does manage to produce admirable results in the face of adversity. Adversity mostly being Sergio constantly hanging over his shoulder.”

“Hm, well, Iker has the patience of a saint. Most of the time.”

Raúl is tempted to ask Guti if there were enough of those leftovers for two. Sure, there’s food in his own fridge but eating alone in front of the television while combing channels for a replay of some long-ago football match was hardly as nice as arguing with Guti over the last of the wonton soup, being teased for his inability to use chopsticks, and- well, probably sitting down in front of the television to watch the same old football match. But with Guti to make snide remarks about the defence and point out the terrible hair styles of years past.

One option is considerably more attractive than the other.

Raúl opens his mouth. “How-”

At the same time as Guti says, “Did you-”

They both stop. Guti grins. “You first. You’re the boss.”

Raúl hopes his face isn’t red. “Oh. Just. I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a good night.”

Guti’s smile dims, ever so slightly. “See you tomorrow.”

Raúl curses internally. For god’s sake, he’s responsible for the financial assets of a solid percentage of the substance distribution in Madrid. He’s a major shareholder in a sizable number of corporations and a highly respected authority on market investments. He’s wringing profits out of the treasuries of important businesses across Spain. He’s personally ordered Sergio to beat a few people to death. Or nearly to death. He’s personally ordered Sergio to cause a few people some serious discomfort. The point remains. He should be able to ask his own goddamn best friend if he can share his leftover take-out without getting all embarrassed about it.

He turns around abruptly, nearly smacking Guti, who’s following behind him out the door. “Actually- you wouldn’t happen to have enough leftovers for two, would you?”

Guti’s grin returns in force. “Raúl,” he says, (smiling, smiling beautifully and it really doesn’t matter how often Raúl tells himself to let go and get over it because he’s never going to be able to, god he’s so fucked) “I _always_ have enough leftovers for two.”


	9. II.iii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah, what has it been, a month? Sorry about the long wait, dear readers! Also preemptive apologies for what is probably going to be another long wait before the next chapter, since Spring Fling assignments go out tomorrow and will promptly be consuming my writing time.

 

Fernando keeps Sergio updated all through his move to London: the flat he rents, the new people he meets.

He finds it easy to make his first steps into the less-than-legitimate market, as Sergio had suspected he would. Fernando was almost unfairly charming. People were always buying what Fernando had on offer, whatever the product. He could sell thin air if he wanted to.

With the bits and bobs from Fernando’s day-to-day comes information about Mourinho: his steady infiltration of the market and, more worrying, his sweep through the London networks of suppliers and dealers. Mourinho was constantly buying or eradicating, tearing down the old webs and spinning new ones in their places, all strings wrapped around his finger. At least, it was worrying for Fernando. For Raúl this apparent long-term investment in London was nothing but good news. But Sergio was concerned.

“Hey,” he tells Fernando, anxiously, “be careful, alright? If you try to get closer to Mourinho, be careful.”

“Obviously,” Fernando laughs, as if Sergio is an idiot for being worried about his friend playing about under the nose of Madrid’s –and quickly London’s- most notorious businessman. “Don’t worry about it.”

Sergio does worry about it. And then, one innocuous Thursday about a month after Fernando had moved to London, he stops responding to Sergio’s texts.

It’s not until five unread texts pile up on top of three unanswered calls over the course of a day and a night that Sergio goes to Raúl.

 

 

“Are you sure you haven’t just kept on missing him? Missing him several times in a row, sure, but it can happen. Maybe wait a day before hitting the panic button,” Raúl suggests, but Sergio’s already frowning in disagreement.

“Fernando’s a bit flighty, okay, but he’s a businessman. He doesn’t _not_ answer his phone. Or not respond to messages.”

Guti frowns. “Did you like...piss him off or something? Maybe he’s just ignoring you.”

Sergio shakes his head tightly. Rationally he knows that Raúl and Guti can’t possibly know Fernando the same way he does, and can’t possibly have the same awful feeling that something has gone wrong. But he _needs_ them to understand. “No. And even if I did, Nando’s not the type to blank you if he’s mad. He’d send me a five thousand word e-mail explaining what I did and how much of a fuck-up I am and how I can scrape my way back into his favour. He doesn’t shut you out, he lets you know.”

“You think Mourinho has something to do with this.” Iker says quietly from the doorway. Sergio turns quickly to look at him. Iker has a strange look in his eye, and when he meets Sergio’s gaze his expression goes hard. “You think Mourinho didn’t take too kindly to Fernando showing up to put his hand in just as he was stealing all the chips.”

Sergio doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. He never does, with Iker. 

Iker nods, almost imperceptibly.

“He’s my friend,” Sergio tells him, voice sounding worryingly plaintive even to his own ears. “He’s my _friend.”_ The words come out a little more fiercely this time. “I know you pretty much only know him as the little shit trying to muscle his way in on your business but Raúl, he’s my friend and I’ve known him for most of my life and I really, _really_ need to make sure he’s okay.” He takes a deep breath. “And if you’re not willing to help, I’m going to go it on my own. If you need to cut me loose, I get it. But like. It’s not going to stop me. I’m going to London and if that fucking sleezeball Mourinho has anything to do with this, I’m going to rip his fuckin-”

“It’s okay Sergio, we get you,” Guti interrupts, soothingly. “The nuclear option is not necessary. And look, I know- we get that you’re worried but what are you going to do? Fly to London, charge into Mourinho’s office demanding ‘where’s Fernando’?”

“Yes,” says Sergio, stubbornly.

“We don’t even know for sure that Mourinho has anything to do with this. It might be unlikely, but maybe Fernando lost his phone. Or broke it. Or any number of things.” Sergio opens his mouth to protest but Guti quickly continues. “I’m not saying we ignore this. But just. Give it a day, alright? Give him another day in case it’s just a regular old mundane tech issue. Send him an email. And if you still haven’t heard from him, then we’ll talk. Okay?”

Sergio nods reluctantly. What Guti is saying makes sense. He doesn’t like it, but it makes sense.

There’s a touch at his shoulder, and Iker’s hand is there, steadying him. Sergio can feel Iker behind him, security and support in one being. The assurance in the simple fact that Iker is there is suddenly almost frightening with how easily Sergio relaxes.

“Wait a day and then see,” Iker says gently. “It’ll be okay.”

Sergio believes him.

 

 

In the end, they don’t need the full extra day. Sergio’s phone starts ringing not four hours after he’d gone to Raúl, Fernando’s number flashing on the screen along with the blurry contact photo of a very drunk Nando celebrating the World Cup by nearly strangling himself with a Spanish flag.

“Hello?” Sergio picks up, breathless, anticipatory. For a horrible moment he thinks he might be faced with an unfamiliar voice, a bearer of bad news for the last number dialled in Fernando Torres’ mobile.

“Hi Sergio.” It’s Fernando’s voice. It’s definitely, absolutely, Fernando’s voice.

Sergio says something then in reply, but later he can’t for the life of him remember what it was. His whole recollection of the moment is absorbed wholly by a sense of pure relief. Fernando is okay. Fernando is alive- and that’s what he’d feared, at the very bottom of the list of terrible things that could have happened, Fernando dead and dropped somewhere ignominiously, an anonymous visitor with no way of ever getting back home.

“I’m sorry,” Fernando says. “I’m sorry you were worried. I couldn’t get back to you for a bit.” He pauses, and Sergio senses something more. They aren’t out of the fire just yet. “Something’s come up.”

“What?”

“Sergio, I...Mourinho got to me. He asked- and I said- well, I’m working for him.”

And there it is. The unexpected strike. It hits home against Sergio’s back, a cold bucket of water.

“It wasn’t much of a choice I’ll admit, but I think it’s going to be good for me,” Fernando is saying, cautiously. “There’s opportunity here for me. But Sergio, I won’t be able to help you out anymore, now that I’m, well, y’know.”

“Of course, I get it.” Sergio says, his mind still spinning with _Fernando_ and _Mourinho_ and _London._ “No, that’s- that’s not as important. Just so long as you’re okay.”

“I don’t think-” Fernando starts, and stops himself before saying, in a rush, “I won’t be able to talk to you as much anymore, Sergio. In general.”

Sergio blinks. “What? Why?”

“Think about how it would look. Mourinho’s just found me trying to push my way into his new city. He gives me a job. And then he finds out I’m in regular communication with one of Raúl González’s top guys? How long would I last, Sergio, do you think. I can’t do it.”

“I’m hardly one of Raúl’s top guys, and we’ve been friends forever!” Sergio protests.

Fernando scoffs. “Come off it, Sergio, you’re his inner circle and you know it. You might think of him a good friend with a lot of influence who you can call up at odd hours if you need someone to watch a movie with. But Raúl is a scary kind of figure and you’re one of the three people closest to him. It wouldn’t play well at all.” Fernando lets out a breath, the sound rattling through the phone line. “I don’t like it either. But just for now, at least. Until I can find my feet, y’know. Just like, some calculated distance. That’s all.”

“If you’re sure that this is the best thing for you to do.”

“Yeah. I am.”

 “And...they didn’t try to- they didn’t rough you up, did they, Nando?” Sergio asks anxiously. It had been on his mind from the moment Fernando had admitted to being bought out. He thinks about what Fernando had been telling him in the weeks prior, about Mourinho giving his new possessions the submit or die ultimatum. “You’re not hurt?”

Fernando is quiet for just a moment too long and Sergio feels his stomach lurch sickeningly.

“No,” he says finally, but in a very small voice that Sergio recognises from when they’d been kids, when he had just moved to Madrid and made a wonderful new friend, but Fernando had been repeatedly harassed by a group of older boys on his block. It’s a tone of voice that goes along with scraped knees and a scabbed-over bottom lip, and hair tugged cruelly in every which way. It’s a tone of voice that Sergio has always hated, from the bottom of his heart, and it kills him, it _kills_ him to hear it again after so many years. “I’m fine,” says Fernando, nine years old and shoved down against the pavement and kicked for being too enthusiastic, too smart-mouthed, too good at five-a-side. “I’ll talk to you later, Sergio.”

 

 

Sergio tells Raúl that Fernando had gotten back to him. He tells Raúl that Fernando is okay, and that Mourinho is still rolling across London, pouring into all the cracks and alleyways of the city like tar, insidious and tenacious. He figures that Raúl will be able to put the pieces together. He tells Raúl and then he goes out to get drunk.

 

\--

 

Iker finds Sergio alone at the dive bar that they had frequented before making it well enough to upgrade to somewhere less likely to serve alcohol that caused blindness. He’s barely two drinks in but Iker takes one look at his face and makes the judicious decision to take him home.

If Sergio’s going to drink until he can’t stand upright, Iker figures he might as well do it someplace he won’t have to sleep in a gutter afterwards.

When they get to Sergio’s apartment Iker goes straight for the liquor cabinet without preamble. Sergio raises an eyebrow. “So you weren’t cutting me off.”

“I wouldn’t have dared.” Iker sets out a bottle of wine on Sergio’s coffee table, along with two glasses. “And anyways. It’s a Friday, and when was the last time we got really drunk together?”

Sergio looks at him with a gratitude that makes Iker’s chest constrict.

 

 

They’ve just arrived at the bottom of the bottle when Iker decides he might as well say it. “Raúl told me about Fernando. And Mourinho.”

For a moment, Sergio looks as if he might not reply. But then he just sighs, and nods. “I’m worried about him, y’know?”

“I know.” Iker says, tamping down on the jealousy clamping its jaws around his ribcage. He hates how _petty_ he is. Sergio in obvious distress and for good reason: his closest childhood friend being pushed under the thumb of José Mourinho, and all Iker can do is feel sorry for himself. He wants to shake himself by the shoulders sometimes.

“Hey Iker?” Sergio asks, shifting closer on the sofa.

Iker looks up. Sergio’s cheeks are flushed. Iker wishes he could do something. If nothing else, he wishes he could be as good a friend to Sergio as Sergio needs, even though Iker knows he might be a little old and irritable and not terribly comfortable with expressing how he feels all the time-

And then Sergio kisses him, and Iker’s train of thought doesn’t just go off the rails, but plummets a thousand metres into an abyss where the only thing that matters is _Sergio, Sergio, Sergio._

It’s not even as if Sergio hasn’t kissed him before: kisses brushed against his cheek and stolen off the tip of his nose when Iker is in a bad mood and Sergio wants him to lighten up. But none of that really compares to Sergio’s lips on his now, soft and hungry, Sergio’s hands caressing the side of his face, scraping against the day’s stubble there and pushing through his hair.

The kiss is whole and consuming and perfect. It’s everything and _it doesn’t mean anything_ , Iker tells himself desperately. It’s just Sergio: tactile, affectionate Sergio, drunk and worried and missing his...whatever Fernando was to him.

Iker doesn’t want to be a sad, drunk mistake for Sergio. He doesn’t want Sergio to try and find someone else in him.

“Sese. Don’t,” he croaks, pushing aside Sergio’s hands with some effort and shoving himself backwards on the couch.

Sergio looks at him, confused. “Iker...?”

“I’m not what- we shouldn’t.”

Sergio looks down at himself, and then back. “Do you not- I just thought, do you want me?” He reaches out hesitantly to touch Iker’s knee, just a fingerprint of contact that burns through Iker’s jeans. “I want you to want me.”

Iker swallows hard. Every brain cell not currently swimming dazedly in the terrible combination of alcohol and arousal is screaming at him that this is a bad idea. A truly awful, life-ruining, friendship-shattering bad idea. Sergio being a handsy drunk and looking for some kind of emotional gratification is not exactly permission for Iker to go ahead and lay all of his deeply buried feelings on the table. But Sergio is also looking at him with dark eyes and red lips, and, okay, is now actively trying to unbutton Iker’s shirt, so there’s that.

This is a bad idea. This is practically a rebound for Sergio. This is definitively not what Iker wants; it’s not private words and slow kisses at the end of the day and being welcomed into Sergio’s heart as well as his bed. This is a spectacularly, horrifically, _unbelievably_ bad idea.

 

Iker, contrary perhaps to popular belief, is only human.

 

He leans in and kisses Sergio, and Sergio opens up to him with a sigh. His fingers are gentle against Iker’s collarbone. It feels right.

It doesn’t feel like a mistake. But then again, Iker thinks wildly, near-hysterically as he carefully leads Sergio into the bedroom, the really big mistakes usually didn’t.

 

 


	10. II.iv

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, this one has been a long time coming! Sorry everyone for the wait. At least it's a longish one and the next chapter should be following quite soon.

 

Something is wrong, but Guti doesn’t put his finger on what it is for a good hour. Then he realises what has been different about should have been an otherwise normal Monday, and drags Sergio into his office.

“Alright. Out with it. What’s going on with you and Iker?”

Sergio’s expression goes carefully blank, and that’s a new one. Sergio is more often than not an open book. Guti can’t remember the last time that his every thought _didn’t_ shine through his expression as clear as speaking, but right now Sergio’s giving nothing away.

“Sergio?”

“Nothing.”

Guti raises his eyebrows. “Oh, really. You’re gonna try that, now.”

Sergio stares at him with the belligerence of a child sticking to an obvious lie, his eyes stubbornly wide and eyebrows lowered. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Well that’s strange, because you’ve been quiet all day, and I thought it was because you’re worried about Fernando, which I totally get, except you also didn’t say hello to Iker when you came in. And you haven’t said anything else to him, either.” He scrutinises Sergio’s face, trying to find clues.

Sergio shrugs. “It’s all fine. We’re good. Like you said, I’ve just been worried about Nando and stuff.”

“I can’t even _remember_ the last time you didn’t say hello to Iker. You _rang Iker up_ to say hello the time he was sick and didn’t even come to work.”

A huff of breath. “Guti. Don’t worry about it, okay? Iker and I are fine. _I’m_ fine.” He turns away and busies himself with cataloguing the new shipping manifests, and Guti can’t get another word out of him on the subject.

 

\--

 

Raúl also notices it when he comes in. The office is subtly, almost unnoticeably, quieter than usual. He can’t identify the difference until he’s already been at his desk a good twenty minutes and runs out of staples putting together the new dossiers for their latest client. He gets up and heads to the storage closet, to rummage around for more staples. In reception Sergio is sitting behind his desk, scrolling quietly through his phone, and Raúl gets it: the usual low-level chatter and back-and-forth from Iker’s office has fallen silent. For the first time in what seems like forever Sergio isn’t perched on Iker’s desk or doodling on his whiteboard.

Sergio looks up while Raúl is standing in the door of the storage closet. “Need anything, boss?”

Raúl shakes his head slowly. “No, I’m fine. Thanks.”

Sergio goes back to his phone, looking for all the world to be perfectly in order. Except that it’s past lunchtime and he’s not hanging off the back of Iker’s chair or even rolling his own chair over to the doorframe for their habitual lunchtime bicker.

Raúl quietly slips into Guti’s office, closing the door behind him.

“What’s up?” Guti asks without bothering to look up. He knows Raúl’s footsteps. It’s a little bit creepy and a little bit impressive. Raúl leans towards the latter, as he does with most of Guti’s talents.

“Is there something going on with Sergio?”

Guti lifts his head at that. “What do you mean?” He says it carefully.

Raúl pulls over the chair at the side of Guti’s desk and sits down. “It’s past lunchtime. And he’s not in Iker’s office.” He narrows his eyes, trying to decipher Guti’s expression. “Did- something didn’t happen with them, did it?”

Guti purses his lips.

“Look, I understand you have friend-friend nondisclosure with Sergio but I need to know if there’s something going on.” Raúl reaches his hand out on the desk to tap at Guti’s knuckles. “I’m not going to stage an intervention or something. I just want to stay on top of things so I can keep everything running smoothly, okay?”

“I know, it’s not that.” Guti quirks a slightly self-deprecating smile at him. “It’s actually...I don’t _know._ Sergio won’t tell me and it’s driving me nuts.”

“So something did happen.”

“Oh, something definitely happened, alright. But he won’t even admit that.” Guti glares at the wall in the direction of Sergio’s desk. “I mean, I hope it wasn’t anything awful because that would be shit. But I wish he would just _tell_ me.”

It would almost be funny, the two of them gossiping in undertones. Except it was Iker and Sergio they were talking about, two of the more important people in Raúl’s life, as well as being two vital cogs in the machine that kept them all comfortably ensconced in their upscale apartments with refrigerators full of the organic vegetables that Iker insisted they all buy (for reasons of health and sustainability).

 

 

The time passes without a word exchanged between Sergio and Iker. Raúl is torn between common sense telling him to leave it be, and the itch to try and fix whatever had gone wrong. The place feels too quiet without the familiar white noise of Sergio babbling and Iker laughing, but he has two meetings scheduled with two different French entrepreneurs (one with several million euros of value in the fishing industry and another with an additional several million in rigging dog races, so he’s really covering the bases today) and Raúl has to leave before he can decide what to do.

 

The next day is much of the same until the end, when Sergio packs up to leave. He sticks his head into Raúl’s office, where Guti is explaining the latest hierarchy change in the surprisingly delicate ecosystem of nightclubs.

“See you guys tomorrow.”

“Bye Sergio.”

Sergio vanishes back into reception and there is a brief quiet before they hear his voice, raised tentatively. “Bye, Iker.”

There’s a pause during which Raúl feels distinctly as though he should be clutching a bag of popcorn, waiting for the thrilling finale.

“Bye, Sergio.” Iker sounds, if anything, even more tentative than had Sergio. But sincere.

The main door closes with a click and Raúl lets out a breath in a whoosh. He glances at Guti and raises his eyebrows.

Guti mouths, “ _Dramatic.”_

Raúl huffs out a laugh.

 

 

Wednesday Sergio swirls into work with a level of enthusiasm nearing his usual. He and Iker tip toe about each other cordially at first, until Sergio goes out to get sandwiches for lunch. He delivers Raúl and Guti theirs before vanishing into Iker’s office. Raúl can’t get a good vantage point, the view of reception from his door mostly obstructed, so he slips into Guti’s and they listen in surreptitiously. Iker’s door is closed and there’s only the muffled sound of indistinct, quiet talking.

About five minutes later the door opens and Sergio steps out. There’s a brief moment where Raúl worries about what might have been said –he still doesn’t even know what had _happened,_ for goodness’ sake- but Sergio just grabs his own sandwich from where he’d left it on his desk, and heads back over to Iker’s.

Beside him, Guti breathes an audible sigh of relief. “Well, thank _god._ It’s just too weird when they’re not getting along, isn’t it?”

It really was, Raúl thinks. He had grown accustomed to the way that things were. It’s strange to think it, but the little world that had somehow spun itself around him was the most secure he’d ever felt in something in his life. It was uncomfortable when something tried to unravel those threads.

 

 

The oddness between Sergio and Iker dissipates after that, even if for a few days they are very conciliatory to each other. But it passes, a blip on the radar in an otherwise smooth sea. A months goes by, and then two, and the winter is beginning to bud back into spring the morning that Raúl receives an email from Iker marked urgent with the subject line READ THIS IMMEDIATELY, He’s waiting for his coffee to be ready when he checks his inbox and it doesn’t panic him (Iker is prone to sending emails of this ilk at the slightest provocation, such as Guti paying his credit card bill only fourteen days in advance instead of fifteen), until he opens it and reads the first line.

The coffee pot burbles its readiness behind him but Raúl doesn’t hear. He’s already out the door.

 

 

When he gets to the office, Guti is already there with Iker, the two of them crowded around Iker’s desktop computer. He looks up when Raúl enters and there’s an immediate look of relief on his face. “Raúl.” He tilts the monitor in Raúl’s direction so he can see more easily. Pulled up on the screen is the same article from an English tabloid that Iker had emailed him. Raúl doesn’t note the source on his second time viewing any more than he had the first: his attention captured by the dark black capital letters stamped over the blurb of text: PROPERTY MOGUL FOUND IN CONNECTION WITH INTERNATIONAL SMUGGLING RING.

There’s a small image inlaid underneath, a press photo of Mourinho at some kind of event, presumably from a few months ago or so. Raúl shakes his head, almost disbelieving. “He’s finally overplayed his hand.”

The article was short and sparse: Raúl assumes that further details have yet to be released. The only real information to be parsed out of the cloud of padding adjectives is that several night clubs in London had been traced to branches of an extended smuggling operation including drugs and small arms, and that ownership of the clubs was in Mourinho’s name.

“What does this mean for us?” Raúl asks. It’s the question that seems to have been implied by Iker’s email even without having been explicitly stated. He’s unsure why it hasn’t been voiced yet.

Iker shifts uncomfortably. “Hopefully nothing. Our professional relationship with Mourinho was entirely contained here in Madrid, and has been quiet for some time now.”

Raúl looks at him piercingly. “But you don’t seem confident.”

“Yes, well. There’s one thing...”

“What.”

“I might be tangentially connected to Mourinho. Which could come back to bite us.”

Raúl frowns, thinking. “But only as legal consul, correct? And it was while he was still in Spain. Even if –or when- your name comes up you’re in no way connected with his dealings in England. Let’s just sit tight for now and see how the situation develops.”

Despite his reassurances, Iker runs a full backup of his computer onto two separate external hard drives before he leaves, and goes home looking disconcerted.

 

 

The second email arrives quietly in Raúl’s inbox late that night. At first Raúl thinks it’s something that’s slipped past the net of his spam folder: sent from bestatleticokits-server@bestatleticokits.es with the subject line ‘New Releases! Madrid, London stores’ On any other day, Raúl would have deleted it. But for some reason the email grabs at him. His spam net really is very good. He never gets spam offers. Especially not spam offers for _Atleti_ kits, of all things. It’s the oddity that grabs him. He hasn’t seen junk mail in, well, years.

He opens the email.

_Valued Customer,_ reads the text, _thank you for choosing bestatleticokits.es for all your fanzone needs!_

There’s a rambling paragraph about prices and sizes that Raúl skims, and then, underneath an embedded sizing chart, he finds it.

_Raúl- JM getting you thru IC, have attached info do not reply to this email do not contact me say hi to S. FT_

The information about the football jerseys continues in stride as if it hadn’t been interrupted by a small, cryptic missive. At the bottom of the email is an attached .zip file named ‘Catalogue’.

Raúl swears to god, if Torres has taken advantage of the upheaval to send him a virus, he’s going to personally burn the Vicente Calderón to the _ground._

He downloads the file and opens it, and the future of the Calderón remains secure. Raúl’s own future, less so. Fernando has sent him a combination of photocopies and mobile phone photos of what appear to be Mourinho’s records: a large cache of all sorts of data, from profits to employee records to lunch receipts. Raúl scrolls through it all for about ten minutes, and then calls Guti, silently thanking the power of friendship for indirectly having prompted Fernando to warn him.

 

 

When Guti arrives they go through the information together, the meaning of Fernando’s cryptic _getting you thru IC_ becoming steadily clear. It’s damning stuff: Mourinho has adjusted Iker’s place in his books to give him the appearance of having had far more influence and for far longer in Mourinho’s affairs than had ever been in reality. Iker’s name is everywhere, and carefully deprived of context in this way he seems to be Mourinho’s personal lawyer rather than just having signed off on a few transactions. Raúl doesn’t appear anywhere other than the records for the consultation he had given, but it doesn’t matter; the depth of involvement that Mourinho has given Iker practically guarantees that Raúl’s affairs will be looked into. After all, Iker is a representative of Raúl González, prominent businessman, and has no legal practice outside of the company.

The way that Mourinho has manipulated just the barest thread of doubt to cast a long shadow over Raúl and his people is as masterful and it is devastating. If Raúl had still been holding his pen, he feels sure it would have snapped by now in the fierce clench of his fist.

Guti breaks the silence, his voice taut with nerves. “We’re going to have to tell Iker.”

Raúl barks out a laugh. “Tell Iker? Tell him that he’s most likely going to be arrested? That Mourinho’s made a catspaw of him and we can’t do anything about it?” He slams his fist against the desk, rattling the pens in their little wire basket. “Fuck. _Fuck.”_

“There’s got to be a way out of this. Iker’s in our books, for god’s sake. We have records that he wasn’t as deep in as Mourinho’s making him out to have been.”

“It won’t help avoid the inevitable legal backlash. I’m Iker’s point of origin, so to speak. He has no independent practice, he has no real work experience beyond what he’s done with us. Any records I produce could easily have been doctored to provide my in-house lawyer with a convenient alibi. And it stands to reason that if Iker knew about or was involved in Mourinho’s illegal activities, then my hand may also be in it somewhere. There’s no way that I’m not going to be at the very least, cursorily investigated.” Raúl shakes his head, almost admiringly. “I hate to give him credit, but it’s a good play. If he manages to take me down, it clears the way for Mourinho to make a come back in Madrid after London’s been blown open.”

 

 

Iker is arrested two hours later.

Raúl and Guti are at the office, listening to the police scanner through Guti’s computer (a tapping programme that had been artfully rigged up by Xavi as a Christmas present to Iker, who liked being on top of things like local misdemeanours). Raúl had wanted to go to Iker’s apartment the second they had finished going through Fernando’s email but Iker had sent him a strongly worded response to their forwarding the information implying that if Raúl dared so much as show his face on Iker’s block within a three hour window on either side of the arrest, Iker would disown him as an indefensible cause altogether.

So Raúl is sitting on the sofa in front of Guti’s desk, listening to the grainy audio feed as Iker Casillas is quietly taken into custody under suspicion of involvement in transnational smuggling in the employ of José Mourinho.

Guti is throwing a pencil at the ceiling with grim, methodical anger when the main door slams open with a crash, as though it’s been kicked in. Both Raúl and Guti jump up at the sound and Guti drops immediately into a defensive stance. But it’s just Sergio who comes flying around the corner. There’s a wild look in his eye and the lack of gel in his hair, all flattened to one side, suggests that he had been sleeping.

Raúl just gestures at the computer where the police scanner mumbles quietly to itself.

“Shit.” Sergio mutters. He looks pale. “ _Shit.”_

Nobody says anything. There’s nothing to add, really.

Sergio drops into the open chair, eyes glued to the computer monitor as though he could actually see Iker through the soundwave gently rising and falling in the programme window over the sounds of police activity. His normally beaming countenance is drawn and worried. “I just,” he starts, and swallows hard. “I guess I never thought that out of all of us _Iker_ would be the one to end up...” He doesn’t seem to talking to anyone in particular and runs a hand through his hair distractedly. “I mean- out of any of us it would be me getting taken in, y’know?” He forces a laugh. “But. Iker. He was always so careful.”

“I know.” Raúl says. “I know.”

“Shit,” Sergio repeats, and drops his head into his hands.

There’s an overwhelming feeling of helplessness pervading the air and Raúl hates it. He wants to say something, to reassure Sergio –not to mention himself- but he doesn’t know what. Soon enough the connection between him and Iker would set the spotlight swinging in his direction, and there would be digging into his affairs; digging that no doubt would turn up nothing good. Raúl is fairly secured by the legitimate business he runs, but the authorities already know where to look thanks to Mourinho.

Something serious has been thrown off balance in the world. A vital wheel has stopped turning and none of them quite know what to do. They might have all sat in silence around Guti’s computer until the sun had gone down, and then continued there in the dark, if Sergio’s phone hadn’t at that moment rang.

The three of them jump slightly, and then look sheepish about it. Sergio pulls his phone from his pocket and frowns at the screen.

“Unknown number.” He picks up. “Hello?”

“ _He’s going to make a deal.”_

Sergio sits up straight. “Nando?”

Raúl snaps around in his desk chair, and makes an urgent gesture. Sergio pulls the phone away from his ear, stabbing at the screen to put it on speaker.

Fernando’s voice crackles through from Sergio’s hand. “ _I’m calling from a hotel; I don’t know if I’m being watched. Listen very closely.  He’s giving information about Raúl in exchange for a lenient sentence for cooperation or some such shit. He’s going to aid their investigation. Tell Raúl. Be careful.”_

The line clicks before anyone can say anything.

“I- I have to go home.” Sergio stands abruptly. “You don’t need me here, right? I just have to walk around, or, or _something._ ”

“Of course. I’ll call you if anything comes up.”

Sergio nods. He looks badly shaken, and Raúl feels a pang of sympathy.

“God,” he says, as the door closes behind Sergio, “I’m really going to owe Torres, aren’t I? I’ll be ushering him back to Madrid with open arms if he wants to leave London. Any trouble he can get up to here will be nothing compared to the trouble he’s been saving me from all week. Thank god he leaked us Mourinho’s doctored records...” He trails off. It’s suddenly quite clear what he has to do. Raúl is even slightly irritated with himself for not seeing it sooner. He looks up slowly. “Guti.”

Guti meets his eye expectantly. He can tell that Raúl has an idea and doesn’t say anything, only waits for it. Raúl loves him for that; for how well Guti can read him and know how to respond.

“I’m going to have to turn myself in.”

“What?!” Guti says, taken aback. “Raúl. No.”

“No, look-” Raúl makes a grab at Guti’s arm. “Look. I’m implicated anyways. This investigation will start digging and eventually my name will come up, and then my entire operation is under scrutiny and starts falling apart at the seams. But if I turn myself in for something smaller, we have more leeway to hide the evidence of my...more serious misdoings.”

“So you’re just...what? Walk up to the nearest station, ‘I’m Raúl González and I’ve been engaged in high-profile financial crime for the past five years, please arrest me’?”

Raúl grins then. “Not quite. They might choose to look such a tremendous gift horse in the mouth. I think I need to call in a favour.”

 


	11. II.v

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick little chapter. I needed to distract myself from Arsenal floundering about against Sunderland at the moment. SUNDERLAND.

 

“I’m sorry, you want me to _what_?” Xavi says. “I can’t tell if it’s my shitty phone connection or if you’ve actually lost your mind.”

“I want you to orchestrate a data leak. I’m sending you the files now.”

“No, see, that’s not what’s striking me as strange. People leak data all the time, for whatever reason. What I’m not quite on board with is the part where this data happens to be the records of all your less-than-savoury deals since you started this racket.”

“It’s not _all_ of them,” Raúl says patiently. “I took out anything to do with drugs, and the things I’m not proud of. Like the hula hoops.”

“Yeah, well.” Xavi snorts dryly. “That’ll teach you to listen to Ramos and his, ‘investment opportunities’.” Raúl can hear the frown in his voice. “This is a shit idea, Raúl. And that is my professional opinion.”

“If I don’t, Mourinho is going to spill on my whole operation and Iker and I, if not all of us, are going to be hit with sentences for moving contraband, money laundering, and a whole bevy of criminal associations. Which is considerably worse than just leaking my taxes and a few bad deals to make them look legitimately bad.”

“Your taxes are obscenely in order, Raúl, you do realise.”

“Ruin them. And don’t pretend that you can’t. I want to have been avoiding payment for years. Oh yes,” Raúl says, with deep satisfaction, “Mourinho’s already exposed himself by trying to cut a deal to expose me. I just want you to leak evidence that the only thing Iker has done is work for me, and the only thing _I’ve_ been doing is tax fraud and the odd shady deal. I can weather that. But I need to get the investigation that Mourinho’s trying to launch off my back.”

Xavi is quiet.

“It’s not just me,” Raúl reminds him quietly. “Iker’s been dragged into this as well. It’s not good for him.”

“I saw. I know. I just- Raúl, are you sure you want me to do this?”

Raúl looks over at Guti, whose expression is tight. He thinks about Iker arrested and Sergio’s worried eyes. He thinks about Luís printing out football schedules and the peeling wallpaper in his first office and tailored suits and court hearings and no such thing as bad press and glossy magazine feature articles and penthouse apartments and the new watch he hadn’t bought. He thinks about Guti working at the dive bar and he thinks about kissing Guti in that club, years ago. This is the life he’s built, and he’s really, very, absurdly fond of it and of the people who live in it.

“Yes,” Raúl says decisively, “I want you to do this.”

 

“We’ve gotten visitation,” Raúl explains, “for an hour. Two of us can go.”

“Take Sergio instead of me.” Guti tells him quietly. He sees Raúl’s eyebrows knit together and adds, “Sergio needs to be there more than you need me, okay?”

_I need you more than anything,_ a small, stupid part of Raúl wants to say, even though he knows Guti is right. He also knows that if he just decided to take Guti anyway, Sergio would accept it without dissent. But Raúl hates seeing how subdued Sergio has been since Iker’s arrest, and it’s not as if they’re doing anything that he particularly requires Guti for, asides from the personal moral support.

He nods. “Of course. Can you tell him he’ll be coming with me to talk to Iker?”

Guti smiles, a real smile despite the exhaustion lacing the edges of his lips and the shadows under his eyes. It’s been a hard week on all of them. “I’ll tell him.”

He hovers for a second between the desk and the door, and finally steps forward beside Raúl and kisses him gently on the side of his head, dry lips brushing lightly against Raúl’s temple. “You’re not a bad person, Raúl.” Guti says quietly, leaving his hand to linger on Raúl’s shoulder for a moment before he steps away, and is gone before Raúl can react.

The ghost of Guti’s kiss lingers on his skin.

 

 

“ _Iker,_ ” Sergio says, the relief in his voice palpable. A slow smile is spreading across Iker’s face, crinkling the corners of his eyes. He looks wane, from worry most likely, but otherwise seems fine.

“Hi Sese,” he says, and the warmth in his tone makes leaving Guti behind all worth it, Raúl thinks. He can see Sergio’s hand twitch, mindful of the strict no contact policy for visitors but also clearly struggling with his natural instinct for physical touch. Even Iker, normally recalcitrant and (at least outwardly) reluctant to give in to Sergio’s tactile methods of communication, seems to be holding back from throwing himself into their arms.

“What am I,” Raúl says, teasing, “just meat in the room?” He laughs when Iker colours. “It’s good to see you, Iker.”

“It’s _beyond_ good to see you. Both of you.” Iker says, smile turning a bit wry. “I admit I was beginning to wonder if you’d cut me loose as an acceptable loss.”

“There’s no universe in which you’re an acceptable loss,” Raúl assures him, despite knowing that Iker was half-joking. “And anyways, I think Sergio would finally have turned on me and slit my throat in the night if I had.”

Sergio nods emphatically. “Instant death.”

Iker snorts. “Lovely.” He suddenly frowns. “Where’s Guti?”

“Only two visitors at a time.” Raúl explains. “And I didn’t exactly think trying to squeeze an exception would have been helpful in this case, for any of us.”

There’s a flash of understanding in Iker’s eyes as he realises the choice that they had made in bringing Sergio, and he inclines his head to Raúl, a gesture of gratitude that hits hard. Raúl wants them all to know, right then, that he would do anything to keep them all together. He wants his friends to know that he would throw himself on the line for them. He wants them to know that he _is_ throwing himself on the line for them.

He can, in a way. He can tell Iker about Fernando’s phone call to Sergio, about Mourinho’s cooperation with the investigation, and about Xavi, even now altering tax records and putting together a helpful dossier of shaky dealings and side-stepped property tax that could be helpfully slipped to the authorities. He can tell Iker all of this, and hope that Iker knows: Raúl is going to get them through this.

 

 

A day later Raúl manages to get Iker released on bail pending further investigation. The leak that Xavi is going to drop that evening will hopefully help clear him of suspicion of having been working for Mourinho, his only bad association then being Raúl himself.

After the forms have been completed and Iker is out, Raúl goes back his apartment with Guti. Iker had murmured something about unfinished business and vanished, and Raúl had wisely decided not to push it.

“They still might be able to nail you on laundering money,” Guti says, as if Raúl doesn’t know. “You’re going to end up doing time, Raúl. Time in a white collar prison sure, but it’s still time.”

“I know. But it’s better than the alternative.” The alternative being his unmasking as a lynch pin of the Madrid criminal market. Somewhere in Barcelona, Xavi has probably already pushed the proverbial detonator. Exhaustion is hanging heavy on Raúl’s shoulders and he wants nothing more than to collapse onto the sofa and sleep. He wants Guti in his arms, warm and safe and real. He wants to feel him breathing.

Guti is watching him closely. “You look like you’re about to fall over,” he says, not unkindly. “Go to bed and get some sleep. Iker and I will sort out how it’s going to go tomorrow, okay?”

Raúl wants to protest. He wants to say that Guti is at least as tired as he is, and that Iker and Sergio were probably intimately entangled at one of their apartments and wouldn’t appreciate being disturbed. At least, they had _better_ be entangled. Raúl has had enough of their dancing about each other, to be frank.

“Don’t argue with me,” Guti says before Raúl can even open his mouth. “I can tell you’re about to pull up some bullshit excuse. But I’ve already told Iker and Sergio to get over here and it’ll do you no favours if you look like shit for the press tomorrow. We’re gonna need you looking well-rested and dashing.” His tone brooks no argument and Raúl allows himself to be shepherded into his bedroom. Once he’s lying down, he can feel himself begin to slip away almost immediately.

“Guti?” Raúl asks drowsily.

“Whatever you want to say, save it for the morning.” Guti says gently.

“But I’m going to be arrested in the morning.”

“Well, skip breakfast and tell me then.” Guti hesitates, and for a moment Raúl thinks he might kiss him again the same way he’d done before he had gone to see Iker. But Guti only puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes lightly. “Sleep well.”

 


	12. II.vi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AT LONG LAST. Sorry for the ridiculous wait on this one: I had expected to have two more chapters to go, but wound up combining them into this, the final instalment of this fic. Hopefully the extra time is worth it. (Also please be mindful of the rating change.)
> 
> When I first started this AU I didn't realise just how flippin' long it was going to wind up, and a million thanks to everyone who's been following along (and putting up with the erratic update schedule!) Every single kudos and comment has brought me unendless joy. <3 <3 <3 You're all wonderful!

 

 

Iker catches Sergio in a whirl coming out of his apartment. He stops stock still in front of his door, blinking at Iker as though he’s a mirage.

“Hi,” says Iker, with a wane smile.

“I just saw Raúl’s message,” says Sergio distantly, half-lifting the hand holding his mobile. He gives his head a short, quick shake as though to clear it, and a smile breaks out over his face. “Was just about to go ‘round to his place.”

“I beat you to it,” Iker looks pointedly at the door. “Should we...?”

“Oh! Yes, yeah.” Sergio twists back around and unlocks the door, ushering Iker inside. He still looks slightly dazed. “I didn’t expect you to be out so quickly.”

Iker shrugs. “Well, you know Raúl. Nothing if not efficient.”

“Am I allowed to touch you now?” Sergio jokes, but there’s a slight quaver in his voice belying his tone.

God, is he ever. Iker nods, not trusting himself not to say something stupid, since he wants –he _needs_ \- to do this thing properly, he’s already fucked it up once-

Sergio has Iker in his arms before the thought has completed its path across Iker’s mind.

“You know I was hardly in jail at all,” Iker says, giving Sergio an awkward-but-pleased pat on the back of his neck, enjoying the warmth of Sergio’s embrace.

“Doesn’t matter,” Sergio says, muffled into Iker’s shoulder. “It was too long.” He lifts his head and pulls back to look at Iker properly. “And I’ve _missed_ you, Iker. I’ve missed you.”

Iker swallows, his heart beating heavily in his chest. He knows what Sergio means. They had regained some semblance of normality after they’d slept together, but it hasn’t been the same. Iker has been painfully aware of this.

After all, he’d been the one who had left. Woken up that morning and crept out of his own house like he had been _ashamed_ or something. He had convinced himself of his reasons at the time –Sergio had been drunk, he didn’t want to embarrass either of them, it was best to give each other privacy- but it all boiled down to the fact that he’d been too fucking scared to do anything but leave. He should have talked to Sergio afterwards, but then Sergio had made that worried overture back to their status quo a day after and it had been so _easy_ to just let everything get swept under the rug.

Iker doesn’t want to try and imagine Sergio’s face when he’d woken up to find himself alone. Iker’s done a lot of shit over the years, mostly for Raúl, but this is what he feels most guilty about.

Instead he looks at Sergio now, who’s smiling at him like Iker is the best thing he’s ever seen, and _Christ_ if that doesn’t make Iker feel even worse.

“Whatever disaster scenario you’re making up in your head right now, you can forget it,” Sergio says lightly, because he’s always been perceptive when it comes to Iker’s personal catastrophes. Except, as it turned out, that one time. The one time it really would have helped.

“I’m not making anything up,” Iker protests, half-heartedly. “But, if I was, well. I would probably say sorry for it.”

Sergio’s face is incredibly gentle. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Iker takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Sergio. I’m sorry for being a complete bastard to you, and I’m sorry it’s taken me this long and also _being arrested_ to get around to saying it.”

“You’re an idiot,” Sergio says without a degree of heat behind it.

“I’m aware of that, yes.”

“But I’m pretty stupid myself, so I can forgive you for it.” The gentleness has, if anything, gotten even worse. Iker’s heart feels as though it’s about to leap up his throat and choke him. Either that or just give out entirely. With death apparently imminent, he might as well go for it. Sergio isn’t even an arm’s length away.

Iker reaches out. Spreads his hand across Sergio’s shoulder, his thumb over Sergio’s heart, feeling the beat below.  “Can I...?”

“Please do,” says Sergio, his eyes wide.

So Iker does.

It’s a better kiss than their first one. This time Iker is certain, one hundred percent. The last time –the first time- had been rushed, hasty. Iker hadn’t had the time or the presence of mind to appreciate the way Sergio’s nose squashed up against his cheek, or the feel of stubble under his fingers as he stroked his thumb along Sergio’s jaw. He hadn’t been able to properly catalogue the taste of Sergio’s lips on his.

It’s a better kiss, and they have all the time in the world to improve upon it further.

 

\--

 

Iker comes in with Sergio roughly twenty minutes after Guti’s gotten Raúl to lie down. Seeing as Raúl had passed out almost the moment his head had touched the pillow, Guti figures he’d been right in telling him to get some sleep.

There are no such luxuries for the rest of them. The bottom line is that Raúl is going to jail in the morning and plans have to be made.

They’re in Raúl’s large, open living room, papers and laptops on the coffee table and a bag of some sort of fancy organic crisps from the pantry open in the middle of the mess. Guti is in one of the two armchairs and Iker had started on the other until Sergio had tugged him over onto the couch, twisting their hands together. He’d fallen asleep with his head on Iker’s shoulder at around three in the morning, while Iker and Guti were discussing how to minimise the media fallout of Raúl’s imminent highly publicised arrest.

“He really loves you, y’know that, right?” Guti says quietly, watching as Iker smoothes Sergio’s hair out of his eyes.

“I realise.”

“For a long time now,” Guti pushes, not letting Iker get away with anything, not now. “I know that something happened between you two and he won’t tell me what, and he tells me _everything_. But he loves you.”

“It was my fault.” Iker admits, a note of distress entering his voice. “I didn’t understand what he wanted and I was- it doesn’t matter. It’s not going to happen again.”

Guti scrutinises him closely, but it seems more than likely that whatever have gone wrong between the two of them had been a product of blind idiocy and probably a decent amount of self-sabotage rather than any sort of malice. “Well, so long as that’s settled.” He stands and stretches. “I’m going to sleep. Nothing much more we can do here. Gotta wait it out until morning, now. Enjoy the sofa.”

Iker narrows his eyes. “Seriously? You’re taking the guest bed by yourself?”

“Consider it your punishment for being a fucking idiot. Also Sergio’s already asleep and I would just _hate_ to have to wake him.”

“If I wind up with a bad back in my old age, I _will_ blame you.”

Guti winks. “You can sue me when the time comes. See you in court, Iker.”

 

\--

 

The next morning Raúl wakes before his alarm and lies staring at the ceiling until it goes off, making him jump. The sound seems mundane; a part of a routine that doesn’t fit with what’s happening around it.

He can smell coffee from downstairs and hear Sergio’s voice singing along with the radio. It’s so normal for a moment, as if nothing is happening more spectacular than the morning after a particularly late night, the four of them crashed into whoever’s home had been nearest and nursing hangovers until someone actually had some work to do.

The rest of the morning is no different than usual, either: his shower, his toothbrush. He looks the same in the bathroom mirror as he always does, which doesn’t seem right, somehow. As though his reflection should somehow acknowledge the fact that he was about to reap the proverbial whirlwind. He had been sowing the seeds for quite some time now. It was really only surprising that the consequences weren’t more severe. Hopefully. If this went off without a hitch.

But wasn’t that the way of it, Raúl thinks, not without appreciation as he splashes his face with water and debates shaving. He was going to wait out some jail time, to be sure. But in the end he would buy his way out with the very cash that had landed him there. It was horrible. It was delightful.

God, but he’s starting to think like Luís. That has to stop.

He’s reaching for his razor when there’s a light knock at the door and Guti pushes it open. “Hey, Raúl. There’s a highly suspect car been idling outside on the street for the past fifteen minutes. Two men inside. I’d say plainclothes. Time’s ticking.”

“Alright. Let me shave and then I’ll be okay.”

“Don’t bother,” says Guti, stepping closer and nudging him in the back. “I like you better with a bit of stubble going on.”

Raúl laughs, and catches Guti’s eye in the mirror. Guti is standing behind him, an inexplicably fond expression on his face and Raúl feels suddenly shy, for no real reason except that Guti is here with him on the edge of some great change. They’re both standing on this precipice and Guti is smiling at him in the mirror and Raúl wonders, for a moment, what he looks like to Guti.

He puts down the razor.

 

 

Guti follows him back out into the bedroom and perches on the edge of Raúl’s bed while he picks out a shirt.

“Last night,” Guti says carefully, “what was it that you wanted to tell me? Right before you went to sleep?”

Raúl furrows his brow, carefully doing up his buttons for a moment before remembering. He reddens. “Oh. I- I just wanted to say. Thank you. For everything.”

“Isn’t that my line?” Guti says teasingly, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m serious.” It’s almost impossible to put into words how serious he is. “I mean, Guti. For god’s sake, I was _drunk_ when I first introduced myself to you, years ago. I was drunk and I’m pretty sure you thought I was trying to pay you for sex.”

Guti laughs. “Well that wasn’t _my_ fault! You were talking like a tax accountant who’d never picked up a hooker before and wasn’t sure how polite to be, so you were compromising with sleeze. It was terrible.”

“I was drunk!” Raúl repeats, shoving at Guti’s shoulder. “And also only twenty-two!” He collects himself. “But really, Guti. Anyone else would have walked away. You got me a cab and even called back in the morning.”

“Well,” Guti is teasing but he’s also smiling almost shyly, “you were prettier back then. I don’t know if I’d do it again today. Probably just leave you on the pavement.” He hesitates. “I probably owe you an apology anyways. I never really explained-”

Raúl interrupts him. “Don’t start anything now. You’re fine. I’m fine. I mean, I’m going to jail, but. We’re fine.”

“No,” Guti insists, fidgeting on the bed, wrinkling Raúl’s neatly made covers. “Well, I mean, I know we’re fine. And I’m glad. But I don’t- that’s not the only thing I want us to be. Just fine isn’t enough, for us.” His face is red but he goes on. “So I’m sorry, even if it was fucking ages ago. I’m sorry.”

There’s an inexplicably lightness rising in Raúl’s chest. _Just fine isn’t enough for us._ “What is enough for us, then?” he asks, softly as though he might break something. “What- what do you want us to be, if not just fine?”

“Do you really need me to say it?”

“Yes, Guti,” says Raúl, sitting on the bed next to him. He hopes Guti can hear in his voice just how badly he needs to hear the words spoken aloud. “I need you to say it. I need you to spell it out for me. Please. Because half the time I don’t know what to think, and it’s driving me in fucking _circles._ ”

“Alright.” Guti opens his mouth, and then closes it again. Thinks. “Do you remember when you kissed me?”

Does he remember. It’s all he _can_ remember. Everything else is just background noise. Raúl nods. “I remember.”

“Me too.” They’re close enough to touch. Even closer. Close enough that Raúl can feel it when Guti breathes out, a short, quick intake of air. “You kissed me, and I walked away, and I regretted it about five seconds after I did.”

Scientifically, Raúl doesn’t think that it’s possible for air to spontaneously deoxygenate itself. But maybe science has gone wrong somewhere, because that was certainly what had just happened.

“You regretted...?”

“I shouldn’t have walked away,” Guti confirms. “I wanted to tell you that. I’ve wanted to tell you that for ages.”

It was what Raúl had, in some capacity, been longing to hear ever since the night that said walking away had happened. How many stupid, cobbled-together scenarios had he imagined like this? Guti would take back his rejection, and Raúl would forgive him, and they would kiss, the sun would rise, birds would sing, et cetera...there was a lot of perfect planning to draw on here. But for some reason the prevalent thought making its way from the back of Raúl’s mind was, _well, that’s taken us long enough._

“Guti, that was _years_ ago _.”_

“Yeah, well.” There’s a slight smile beginning to form on Guti’s face. Some regret, but quite a lot of the look Guti gets when he’s laughing at Raúl and not bothering to hide it. “I was trying to figure out how to call it an ill-timed trial run and bring up the question of starting over. It was a difficult question to word.”

“You took two years trying to figure out how to ask me if I’d like to try kissing you again?”

“To be fair, it’s not the easiest question in the world.”

“I dunno,” says Raúl, teasing. “Seems pretty simple to me.” He leans forward, still hesitating just a fraction, just in case. But Guti has met him in the middle, and Raúl kisses him.

Raúl has always considered his memory to be fairly good, but it can’t be, because this is nothing like the memory of the distant kiss they had shared that one, solitary time. Not least because this time, Guti doesn’t pull away but pushes forward, his mouth hot and open on Raúl’s, his hands on Raúl’s waist, fingers digging possessively into his side.

The taste of coffee is on his tongue. Coffee and something underneath that Raúl remembers still from long ago, something not quite tangible but so very _Guti_ that is makes him want to cry out in relief for tasting it on his lips again.

Guti shoves his way in between Raúl’s legs, dragging his thigh up against Raúl’s cock, hard in his trousers. Raúl whimpers into Guti’s mouth, and feels Guti’s answering smile before he grinds up again, and Raúl’s already seeing stars.

“ _Guti.”_

“That didn’t take long,” Guti says, but he’s breathless. He reaches down to trail a finger along the Raúl’s zipper. “Do you really want to fuck me with the police on our doorstep?”

“Yes,” Raúl says, his voice rough and his ribs tight around his heart. “God, yes.”

 

 

They’re quick and a little bit overeager, trying to make up for lost time even as the inevitable rushes towards them. But it’s still good. Better than the hundreds of vague, half-formed fantasies that Raúl has entertained over the years. Years, months, days, minutes-

“Can you,” Guti is scrabbling his fingers against Raúl’s arm, dragging his hand forward to press between them, hot and desperate. “Raúl, I need-”

“Yes, Guti, anything,” Raúl laughs dizzily into the side of Guti’s neck, trying to get them both out of their trousers at once and just grabbing uselessly at fabric. “Anything, oh for god’s sake-”

Guti has his hands on top of Raúl’s. “Can’t you do anything by yourself?”

“Why would I want to?” Raúl bites at Guti’s lower lip just because he _can._ “I don’t have to anything by myself. I have you.”

Guti stares at him for a moment with an expression that looks like disbelief on his face before breaking into a grin. “Of course. You have me.”

If he’s being entirely honest with himself, Raúl could have been more than content with just kissing Guti as though the world was ending, right up until it actually did. He likes having Guti pressed all up against him like this, long legs and skinny ribs.

“Lube,” Guti says in between kisses. He has other plans than Raúl and it’s not a question: it’s an order, like he knows Raúl has some in the top drawer of his nightstand, tucked underneath the stack of crosswords he’s torn out of newspapers and the little pile of mostly-neglected condoms.

“Drawer,” Raúl tells him anyway, and Guti leans across him to reach. Raúl’s watches the stretch of his skin with fascination.

“Are these expired?” Guti teases, ripping open one of the condom packets and waving it at Raúl. “You have a sad life. At least I don’t have to be jealous.” He kisses Raúl again, as though he’s still amazed that it’s so easy. Raúl knows the feeling. “Not that I would be. I know you.”

He really did. Should he be worried about the fact that Guti knows him inside and out? Raúl isn’t sure. It was more or less assumed that Raúl held power in wreathes easily around his shoulders. But if people really knew, they would see that he would have thrown away every last cent, thrown away his home and livelihood, thrown away his life if Guti told him to.

Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. But with Guti rolling the condom onto Raúl’s cock and slicking it with lube before stretching himself open on long, eager fingers, Raúl just can’t bring himself to be too worried about it.

When Guti finally slides himself down on Raúl’s cock, Raúl can’t think for a solid minute. His brain can’t process or recall anything but the immediate sensation of Guti around him,  eyes closed, his lips turned up at the corners as small gasps are forced from his throat, taking Raúl’s cock all the way to the hilt and fucking himself back against Raúl’s hips.

When Raúl’s brain resumes semi-functioning again all he _can_ think of is _time:_ the time they don’t have. He wants to have Guti slow on the bed, his long limbs spread across the sheets and his cock hard and wet until he’s begging for it. He wants Guti to touch him all over until he’s taken apart underneath those fingers and he wants Guti to never stop touching him, preferably until the end of time. Which they still don’t have.

“I’m not going to last,” Guti whispers, “ _god,_ Raúl, I’m-”

“Don’t just yet,” Raúl says through his teeth, his skin burning and feeling himself chasing Guti as he has been for the past half decade. “Not yet, not yet, Guti. Chema. Chema, _Chema._ ”

They’ve been waiting so long. Guti obliges Raúl, and waits just a little longer. He’s so hot and tight that Raúl thinks he might just dissolve and vanish up into that sparking, unreachable realm in which Guti lives. He’s babbling nonsense, when he comes, hips jerking without any sort of finesse whatsoever but Guti doesn’t seem to mind as he follows Raúl over the edge, down, down, down.

 

 

They’re cleaning up in the bathroom, taking their time and enjoying just _touching_ each other with no intent or purpose behind it when they hear the murmuring of the streets fall into a telltale deadly quiet. There’s the sound of a car engine purring outside the flat and Raúl grins, showing a few too many teeth. He fits the part suddenly, because even if they both know that deep down Raúl’s still the vaguely out-of-his-depth university graduate looking for a business partner, right now he looks nothing more than the cutthroat spinner of underground webs that his reputation makes him to be. “Sounds like that’s my ride.”

Guti smacks him on the shoulder. Familiar. Grounding. “You know we’re already drawing up your appeal.”

Raúl laughs. “Of course. You also know it’s pointless, right? The only way out of this is serving _some_ sort of time.”

Guti looks at him incredulously. “Are you fucking with me right now? You’re rich, young, charming, and have fingers in pies all over the goddamn country. Continent, even. If it weren’t for a little bit of harmless drug plying you’d be _fine._ Even fucking footballers don’t go to jail for having weird tax records. And they very rarely wield much political influence.”

“Guti, most footballers’ ‘weird tax records’ are because they want to buy more expensive cars to crash, not because they’ve been engaged in mass financial theft for half a decade.”

“Don’t roll your eyes at me. Iker will have you out in no time.”

The bickering continues. The sirens grow louder. They’re still arguing when the knock comes at the front door, loud and insistent and unmistakably delivered by the long arm of the law.

“Well,” Raúl says, with finality, “Will you get that or shall I?”

**\--**

It has to be a good media picture, they all know this. It has to be a good tableau that will stay in the public eye and smooth the way for Raúl to come back –there’s no doubt about this, not in Guti’s mind, he knows Iker has something squirreled away just for this occasion- and Sergio is hissing something in his ear but it doesn’t matter, because this is the most important first step in the future resurrection of a man, of an empire, and Guti shoves his way through the swarm of police to where Raúl is being pushed unceremoniously into the back of the squad car, his hair wild in curls all over the place and his suit rumpled, looking every inch the man that he is even handcuffed and on his way to prison.

“Guti,” Raúl begins, over the commotion and the police officers shouting at Guti, “look, I-”

“Shut up, we’ll handle it.” Guti says, and then smiles. “Something for the road,” he says. He grabs Raúl by the shoulders and tugs him closer, reaching to twist a hand in his hair before leaning down and kissing him fiercely.

He can hear the shutters of a dozen cameras suddenly increase in their frantic tempo, and the majority of the yelling around the squad car shifts in favour from the officers to the journalists as the Raúl González story takes on an entirely different flavour than the standard _misdeeds of investment giant revealed_ scandal piece that would have been decorating the business section. Guti feels Raúl smiling against his lips, leaning forward- before he’s dragged away.

“Wait for me while I’m inside?” Raúl asks with a wink, far more cheery than a man being dragged away in handcuffs had any right to be.

Guti blows him a kiss. “Depends on how long you take.” He wants to tell Raúl not to worry, wants to reassure him that Iker is most definitely already planning the case for the defence. Wants to tell him again how he’s sorry that they’d both been idiots for years. But there’s no time. He’s being waved back by an irate police officer, there’s a veritable tide of media waiting for him, and the police cruiser door is slammed shut. Raúl is sitting up straight and tall in the back, looking for all the world as though he’s simply gotten into his car to be chauffeured to some event or other, the picture of poise. Guti doesn’t have time to tell him anything else.

It doesn’t really matter. He thinks Raúl had probably gotten the message anyways.

 

 


End file.
